EDMONTON – The federal government’s grain marketing panel took on a human touch two weeks ago with a presentation from a United Church agricultural task force.
Instead of focusing on the Canadian Wheat Board, dual marketing, spot prices or political interference in the grain industry, Terry Lee Degenhardt talked about the importance of saving family farms, rural communities and co-operation.
“We need to recognize the importance of people, family and farms,” Degenhardt told the Western Grain Marketing Panel, established by Ottawa to look at the future of grain marketing.
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The Hughenden, Alta. farmer said higher chemical and fertilizer costs have combined with lower prices to convince prairie farmers the only way to survive is to compete with each other.
“The opposite of competition is not slothfulness. It’s co-operation,” she told the panel.
But that competition has also continually eroded rural communities. Farmers buy out their neighbors who “couldn’t make it.” A son won’t sell his father cheaper grain for his livestock and farmers drive past their home-town stores to save money in the city.
Degenhardt said many of the farmers who advocate dual grain markets are in financial trouble and their quest for dual markets is an attempt to survive.
“I recognize the financial stress they’re in. Surely there’s a way to maintain the integrity of the Canadian Wheat Board and somehow meet the needs of those farmers losing their farm,” she said after the presentation.
Degenhardt said her group thinks weakening the wheat board’s powers would only increase competition between farmers.
“More and more, the ethic of globalization is being pushed at farmers – compete, compete, compete.”
Instead of competition, Degenhardt said she hopes the panel will bring farmers together.
“May God guide your decision,” she concluded.
