Time for a farmer income plan

Diane Rogers is Farm Living Editor of the Western Producer.

How come the people growing our food can’t afford to continue?

The rallies held in increasing numbers this fall and winter make it plain that substantial numbers of farmers don’t get enough money for growing crops or raising animals.

Statistics Canada recently reported that $69 of every $100 earned by the country’s farm families came from off-farm income and jobs. And that was in 1996, not as bad a year as 1998.

Why do farmers stay with a farm when all it brings are debts? Most say it is because of the lifestyle. It is a good place to raise kids, to appreciate the air and peace, enjoy the land and wildlife as they were created.

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That is laudable, but bankers, economists and agribusinesses seem to be pushing farmers to regard their farms mainly as a business.

And when the business fails, a lot of energy is spent lobbying for and achieving farm assistance programs: Acreage-based, income based, guaranteed cost of production, improved crop insurance, ad hoc payments. All such ideas and programs are merely rejigging a system that works only until the next crisis finds someone who slipped through the safety net due to the impact of drought or flood, globalization, a cheap food policy, free trade, poor management, bad luck or laziness.

Let’s scrap the plethora of programs that lead to images of hurting, angry or whining farmers. Every time the farmer appeal is played on television, radio or in newspapers, it reinforces the idea that nobody can make a living farming unless they win a million in a lottery.

How will we ever encourage young people to start farming?

One way may be to borrow an old idea of a guaranteed annual income. Pay farmers who produce food a basic income level – say $25,000 a year – then turn them loose to earn as much money as they want after that. Of course, in exchange for this farming incentive we would scrap all other programs, safety nets, tax relief, NISA and FIDP.

Farmers would gain a standard living without having to resort to appeals to governments or taxpayers. All donor-reliant charities know how constant appeals lead to funding fatigue. And how dignified is it for farmers to have to ask for the mortgage or spring seeding money?

Before discarding the idea of universal income payments, look at senior citizens. They get monthly cheques from the government – and that is merely for attaining their old age.

They don’t get paid for producing anything that can be sold, unless you count their storehouse of experience often expressed in words of wisdom in letters to the editor.

The problem with a guaranteed farm income would be weaning governments off the bureaucracies they have set up to devise and distribute farm aid. Look at the difficulty Indian Affairs is having shutting itself down even with the general public acceptance of aboriginal self-government.

In this age of let’s-check-what-the Americans-think, heed the words of United States agriculture secretary Dan Glickman. He and the head of the House of Representatives’ agriculture committee Larry Combest, have both mused in the past month about how all American farmers need some form of long-term help because ad hoc farm aid is too expensive, both financially and politically.

Let’s get ahead of them and do it first.