Things are bad on the farm, say prairie farmers, and they expect it will get worse before it gets better.
An independent opinion survey of prairie farmers, sponsored by the Canadian Wheat Board, found pessimism to be the order of the day among producers in all three provinces.
“You get a sense of it just getting darker and darker and darker in terms of the mood out there,” said Greg Lyle, head of Innovative Research Group, which conducted the survey.
The survey showed 84 percent of farmers interviewed felt things in agriculture were going in the wrong direction. That’s up from 80 percent last year and 59 percent two years ago.
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The survey also asked farmers to choose among four possible descriptions of the situation on their farm.
Six percent of those surveyed said they didn’t expect to survive another year, while another 52 percent said if things don’t improve, they’ll be out of business in the next couple of years.
Thirty-five percent said they were in no real danger, while only five percent said they were doing fine.
That’s a gloomier outlook than two years ago, when the same question found three percent expected to be gone in a year and 35 percent in a couple of years, with 50 percent saying they were in no danger and 10 percent doing fine.
Lyle said that in nine years of doing the survey, there has never been a year in which farmers felt bullish about the future.
But he said this year’s results were particularly bleak.
Farming has been “tomorrow country” for a long time, said Lyle, particularly in world grain markets, and farmers are getting worn down.
“There’s a weariness there and a real question of how long farmers can keep slugging,” said Lyle. “They’re looking for allies and help.”
The cost of farm inputs was identified by farmers as the major issue they’ll face in the coming year, with 96 percent of respondents describing it as a problem, up from 92 percent last year.
That was followed by the price of non-CWB grains (86 percent), the price of wheat (84 percent) and a lack of markets for grain (58 percent).
