TORONTO – Toronto-area grain farmer John Doner had listened to more than a day of experts, academics, politicians and negotiators extol the potential benefits of a new World Trade Organization deal and trade liberalization and he had had enough.
“I have both my feet in the furrow,” said the operator of a 4,000 acre farm within the boundaries of the Greater Toronto Area. “The reality of free trade is that no one takes account of the cost of production.”
He said he is receiving depressed grain prices but paying record-high input costs.
Read Also
Phosphate prices to remain high
Phosphate prices are expected to remain elevated, according to Mosaic’s president.
“Free trade for me as a farmer is not creating wealth,” the veteran of tractor demonstrations for better prices and programs said Dec. 7.
“When will the issues of cost and price be looked at by the people developing free trade?”
Farmers in the audience agreed.
There had been speeches about presumed price-elevating effects of a reduction in subsidies and trade barriers, discussion of economic models that said it was so and acknowledgement that in freer trade there would be winners and losers and governments should help the losers through their “transition.”
There also were assurances from Canadian officials and federal agriculture minister Andy Mitchell that increased farmer profitability was the core goal of the Canadian position at the WTO.
But for many farmers at the conference organized by the federal and Ontario governments and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, there was no direct link made between better incomes for farmers and the goals of more trade, reduced protections for marketing boards and sharply reduced government supports.
“Why are farmers increasingly becoming cynical about these talks?” asked Ontario farmer and International Federation of Agricultural Producers president Jack Wilkinson. “We don’t seem to be seeing the benefits.”
Wilkinson said on his own northern Ontario farm this year, he’ll make enough to pay the bills. Income from his IFAP job is the profit.
Dave Frederickson, president of the U.S. National Farmers Union, joined the chorus of skeptics.
He said lower government supports and freer markets have been a boon for trading corporations and multinational food and processing companies but have offered little for farmers but falling commodity prices and competition against other poor farmers.
The NFU president called it a “race to the bottom” in efficiency and competitiveness with no payoff for most producers.
“When you win the race to the bottom, you are standing at the finish line but you are broke,” he said.
One of the conference’s few counter voices was Ontario soybean grower Liam McCreary, president of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance representing both some farm groups and agri-food companies.
He presented the conference with the view that a scheme of trade liberalization, deep cuts in protectionism and farm supports would be major benefits for developed and developing country farmers.
“CAFTA’s long term goal is the establishment of global tariff and subsidy-free trade in agriculture and food products,” he said.
