Marie-Pier Vincent, a fourth-generation Quebec dairy farmer, worries it will be even harder to make ends meet if Canada allows more tariff-free milk product imports from the United States under a reworked North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Vincent, 28, is already looking for a second job to pay back the money she borrowed to strike out on her own two years ago and start up a 35-cow farm 100 km (60 miles) southeast of Montreal. She and Canada's 11,000 dairy farmers made these investments trusting in the country's price controls and protection from imports that have been in place since the 1970s.
Now she fears Canada could relax its controls and agree to admit more US dairy.
"It's a huge deal as I have a lot of debts," she said. "We really hope there will be no concessions."
US President Donald Trump wants a reworked NAFTA deal that eliminates dairy tariffs of up to 300 percent that he argues are hurting US farmers, an important political base for Republicans.
Canada is under pressure to reach a new NAFTA deal with Mexico and the United States by Friday after the bilateral deal announced by the United States and Mexico on Monday.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose federal Liberal government relies on support from Ontario and Quebec where most dairy farmers live, repeated on Wednesday that he will defend Canada's dairy industry. If he makes concessions, he could harm his 2019 re-election chances.
But Ottawa is ready to make concessions on Canada's sheltered 21 billion Canadian dollars (16.3 billion US dollars) dairy market to save a dispute-settlement system, a provision that was dropped from an agreement that the United States and Mexico reached earlier this week, the Globe and Mail reported on Tuesday.
A Canadian government spokesman declined to comment on the report.
Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard warned Ottawa on Wednesday that any weakening of Canada's supply management policies would have "serious political consequences."
Ralph Dietrich tripled capacity at his Ontario farm over the past three years to 170 cows producing milk. Dietrich bought an additional farm and more production quota after Canadian farmers struck a deal to sell skim milk to the country's processors at a lower price.
That deal, called Class seven, allowed them to compete with cheap US supplies, and the move angered American farmers.
Ending the Class seven deal, as US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has demanded, would force farmers such as Dietrich's son and son-in-law to reduce production.