PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Man. – Susan Van de Velde said she is tired of talking with her family about how they will make ends meet on their farm this year.
There’s a bottom line, she told a group of MPs early this week.
And that bottom line is whether the federal government wants to keep farmers in Canada. If so, it needs to help them compete with subsidized farmers in the United States and Europe.
“I’m really tired of working this hard for such a poor return,” she told the House of Commons standing committee on agriculture.
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Two disasters hurt her family’s grain and cattle operation in western Manitoba this year.
First, the family’s 3,500 acres, many of them near Dunrea, Man., were flooded this spring and then affected by a cold, wet growing season.
Prices are another debacle. The price plummet for canola alone has meant a $200,000 hit on gross income for Van de Velde’s farm.
About 40 farmers packed the small meeting hall this week for the first of the committee’s nine meetings in Western Canada on safety nets.
Like Van de Velde, they talked about disappearing equity, layoffs at small-town businesses and frustration with government attitude.
They spelled out their resentment at insinuations that farmers in trouble are poor managers running unsustainable operations, when the subsidy programs of the United States and Europe are the culprits behind low prices.
They told MPs the disaster in Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan this spring is not being treated with as much concern or government help as the Red River Valley flood in 1997 or the ice storm in Ontario and Quebec.
As the smell of freshly baked bread wafted through the meeting hall, farmers talked about how little they receive compared to the retail price of food.
Ross Tufford told MPs farmers received about five cents from the sale of a 43 cent loaf of bread in 1974. Today, that loaf is worth $1.03, but farmers still only get five cents, said Tufford, a farmer and equipment dealer.
The MPs heard ideas for long-term solutions to the crisis, including a set-aside program, income insurance based on a cost-of-production formula, task relief, better world trade negotiations, grain transportation reform and an end to the wheat board monopoly.
But farmers also stressed they need help now.
Van de Velde would like to see an across-the-board acreage payment for farmers based on their productivity.
The Agricultural Income Disaster Assistance program was universally disparaged.
“I’m ashamed of it, of the delivery of it,” said Larry McCormick, an Ontario Liberal MP on the committee.
John Harvard, the chair of the committee, noted there’s still $1 billion in AIDA left to be distributed.
“It drives us crazy,” he said.
Harvard said the committee wants to report to Parliament by the end of January, before the next session begins, and a couple of weeks before the government’s next budget.
Farmers expressed relief that someone from Ottawa has finally come West to hear about their problems.
The House Agriculture committee made brief visits at several prairie locations last week, but the meetings were held after press time.
