UNDERHILL, Vermont — The Vermont dairy cooperative can breathe easier. Just days before the Port of Montreal Authority's November 1 deadline, the two freight carriers that had extended congestion surcharges to outbound agricultural cargo confirmed in writing on Friday that the extension is suspended through the holiday quarter.

For the eleven-farm cooperative, which launched its first-year EU export pilot this spring, the written confirmation is more than a formality. It preserves the margins the co-op had warned were under threat.

"We were looking at a very thin first year," said Marie-Claude Fortin, export coordinator for the cooperative, speaking from the co-op's headquarters in Underhill. "When the carriers first floated the extension, we told our buyers' consortium that we might not be able to meet volume commitments at the prices we'd agreed. That's not a conversation any of us wanted to have."

The co-op had publicly cautioned in September that the surcharges, if extended, would erode pilot margins by as much as 18 percent and force it to renegotiate volume commitments with its European buyers' consortium.

Under the arrangement confirmed Friday, the Port of Montreal Authority will grant temporary berth-priority arrangements to agricultural exporters and begin publishing weekly dwell-time data. The carriers, however, reiterated that the suspension is reversible if dwell times stay above four days.

"We're grateful for the breathing room," Fortin said. "But we're not celebrating yet. We'll be watching those weekly numbers as closely as anyone."

The cooperative supplies milk from farms across Lamoille and Chittenden counties. Its EU pilot represents the first direct export corridor for Vermont dairy since RONA's founding in 2036.