Instead of fuming and sighing over Ottawa’s disinterest in their cause, Canadian farmers should study how American farmers extract money from Washington, says Andy Schmitz.
Schmitz is a Canadian agricultural economist who has taught and lived in Canada and the United States.
Beyond his scholarly pursuits, he is engaged in the family farm north of Moose Jaw, Sask., and is a consultant to the American sugar industry in Florida.
These activities give him a unique perspective on the agricultural environments of the two countries.
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He told a meeting sponsored by Farmers of North America Inc., that the main reason American farmers got $23 billion in government support last year is
organization.
U.S. farmers have the American Farm Bureau and the American Farmers Union. The farm bureau in particular is a well funded, slick Washington operation that knows where the power is and how to tap into it.
Its well researched, professional lobbying on behalf of U.S. farmers makes the well-meaning but unfocused Parliament Hill visits of prairie farm activists seem as impotent as a swarm of gnats.
Canada has had no effective national farm lobby since the 1980s when the western component was torn apart by differences over the Crow Rate.
American farmers have deep divisions too, Schmitz said, but they don’t let internal frictions distract them from the true prize of continued government support.
Some commodity groups also hire lobbyists to present their individual cases to Washington’s power brokers. They pay the lobbyists big salaries – hundreds of thousands of dollars – but get back many millions in government support, he said.
Convincing the government of the need for financial aid is the only solution to inadequate farm incomes.
Schmitz said the World Trade Organization will never rein in European and American farm programs enough to significantly improve world grain prices.
The market offers no solution because the productive capacity of modern farms will, in the foreseeable future, outpace the demand for food, he said.
Schmitz suggested that Canadian farm groups get together for a meeting and bring up 10 successful American farm lobbyists to explain how they hold together a farm consensus and how they get support from politicians.
Once formed, a Canadian farm lobby has a good case to argue.
“If there is no role for government in western agriculture now, then there is no role for government ever,” he said.
