PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. – Saskatchewan’s farm lobby group is resolved to increase public awareness of agriculture’s economic plight.
At the semi-annual meeting here June 17 of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, the delegates instructed their board of directors to plan a public awareness campaign.
Tim Korol of Colonsay, representing that rural municipality, said the public needs to be made aware of the small amount that farmers receive for their products and how that has declined in recent years.
He and other delegates to the meeting suggested illustrating the issue of low commodity prices by selling ground beef, bread and other products to the public for prices equivalent to what producers receive.
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“Two-cent loaves of bread and 10-cent (per pound) ground beef should help make it clear how little we are working for,” he said.
Paul Beingessner of Truax, Sask., representing the RM of Elmsthorpe, said the organization can take the issue one step further by showing the public how much each “other link in the food chain takes for their share on the way to the consumer.”
APAS president Terry Hildebrandt said the protest sale, if it takes place, would be done during a November farm income symposium planned for Regina.
“There is a farm income crisis. Our costs are rising. The price we receive continues to fall. Government programs fail to address the needs of producers,” he said.
Agricultural economist Ken Rosaasen who represents the RM of Corman Park, said the acuteness of the farm income problem is often concealed by producers’ efforts to stay afloat.
“Even the way the government calculates farm incomes is now based on the whole income for a farm enterprise, including off-farm income. How that money is spent once it is earned is not reported. If it is going to repaying debt on operating loans and other non-capital investments, then that isn’t reported … we have to keep these issues in front of the public in ways that they can understand them,” Rosaasen said.
“Schoolteachers can convince the public they are in need of wage increases simply by showing their salaries over time compared to inflation. We have to find out ways to tell our story.”
Hildebrandt polled the delegates about their opinion of the organization’s government lobbying efforts.
Delegates expressed their frustration with the province’s lack of action on full funding for Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization and the federal design of the program, in spite of APAS lobbying.
However, they did endorse continuing the lobby and expanding it to include direct-to-the-public actions such as protest sales of meat and grain products.
