Rural electrification was one of the union's foremost goals in its early years (it is estimated that only ten per cent of Quebec farms had electricity in 1930).
A 2008 report to the Quebec cabinet recommended changing this system and offering producers a free affiliation vote every five years.
[5] A 2015 Maclean's article, "Why the dairy lobby is so powerful", described an incident during the September 28, 2015 federal leaders Munk Debate on foreign affairs, then-NDP Leader Tom Mulcair asked Stephen Harper if they could assure the Union des producteurs agricoles du Québec (UPA) President Marcel Groleau, reached out to the New Democrats, Liberals and Bloc Québécois, of his full support for supply management.
[6] In his chapter on supply management in his on-line political memoir, Maxime Bernier groups together supporters of supply-managed sectors under a combined dairy lobby.
Bernier wrote that the combined dairy lobby funds millions of dollars in university graduate programs and research on "collective marketing of agricultural products" across the country in support of SM policies.