The problem is easily identified but the solution still eludes the man studying it.
Wayne Easter told farmers attending a symposium on farm income in Regina last week that their lack of market power means they have to take the prices they’re given. He identified that in a 48-recommendation report released last summer.
“Agriculture contributes $81 billion to the Canadian economy, one in eight jobs is as a result, and so farmers and rural communities are generators of wealth in this country but they’re not getting their fair share of that,” the parliamentary secretary to federal agriculture minister Andy Mitchell told reporters outside the meeting.
Read Also
Stock dogs show off herding skills at Ag in Motion
Stock dogs draw a crowd at Ag in Motion. Border collies and other herding breeds are well known for the work they do on the farm.
“The fundamental problem, the lack of market power, is one that I admit in the report that I don’t have the answer to at this stage. But as the farm community both nationally and globally, I think we can find that.”
Easter said the government is well aware of farmers’ difficulties and that the safety nets in place aren’t doing the job.
He also said he was concerned and suspicious about what’s happening at world trade negotiations and how those talks would affect primary producers. He said the worst abusers in terms of export subsidies, tariffs and lack of market access are driving the agenda.
“I think it’s kind of sad that what we’re seeing with the latest proposals is the European Union and the United States are again almost driving the agenda,” he said. “They’re putting counterproposals when some of the proposals from Canada probably make more sense.
“I think a coalition of other countries including Canada has to come together and challenge them on that fact and make sure we get at the end of the day the kind of sensible proposals that would make a difference to primary producers at the farmgate.”
Jack Wilkinson, president of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers, said forcing change at the WTO is “evolution versus revolution.”
“There’s no reason to believe that the U.S. and European Union are absolutely going to change everything because Canada and Brazil and some other low cost producers want a change,” he said in an interview.
Wilkinson said the problem is too complex for Canadian farmers to focus on “if only” the Europeans or Americans would change their support programs or grant market access.
“What vice-president who purchases your commodity as a farmer is going to pay a different price tomorrow simply because of a change in U.S. policy,” he said.
Wilkinson said farmers have to work together to identify what they want and drive their own agenda.
A meeting like the one hosted by the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan doesn’t create solutions, he added, but it does allow farmers to coalesce around some concepts and focus their energy.
“We’ve got to try and energize everyone to treat the crisis at the degree that it’s at,” he told the meeting, echoing Easter’s comments that the crisis is global.
“We now have something in common worldwide,” he said. “Farm income is the shits everywhere.”
He said lobbying for more money from government isn’t going to do the trick. Governments have given record amounts to agriculture over the past few years and net farm incomes are still negative.
