Nine hundred million dollars sounds like a lot when it’s announced from on high, but what will it mean when it trickles down to the farm?
That’s what farmers are pondering now that Ottawa has announced its funding for a federal-provincial bailout.
Farmers involved in farm aid rallies this fall seem split on the package.
“It’s possibly an excellent first step,” said Morris Prescesky, the main organizer of the farm truck rally in North Battleford, Sask., in early November.
“We’ve come a long way from having nothing at all,” he said Dec. 14.
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But Spiritwood, Sask., farmer Don Voss sees things differently.
“It doesn’t do a thing. This is a total joke,” said Voss, who gave the summary speech at the North Battleford rally.
Voss said farmers like him need $40 per acre, and this package will work out to only one-fifth of that.
“It’s pretty meaningless.”
Wainwright, Alta., farmer Robert Kratchmer is skeptical, but not as dismissive as Voss.
“This isn’t a lot of money when it’s spread across the country,” said Kratchmer, who attended the Neilburg, Sask., rally in mid-November.
Farmers in Neilburg called for $80 per acre. They said they needed that much to cover not only the commodity price crash, but also years of consecutive drought in the area.
Kratchmer said this federal program, which will be based on income tax returns, is unfair because it will punish farmers who have already been suffering hard times, while rewarding those who have had good times.
“It’d be better as an acreage payment.”
This week another farm rally was scheduled to take place Wednesday at Canora, Sask.
Organizer Gary Sleeva said the federal package doesn’t take away the need for farmers to make their plight known.
“It’s too low,” he said of the package. “I don’t think too much of it.”
Prescesky said he doesn’t know what to make of the bailout yet, because there are so few details of how it will work: “Nobody really seems to know where it’s headed.”
