PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Man. – Only in the last year have Manitoba farmers realized their total freight bill is more than what they pay for fertilizer.
Barry Routledge says it’s a sign of the fundamental shift taking place in the rural economy as it moves past the loss of the Crow rail transportation subsidy.
Routledge, who farms at Lenore, Man., said paying $40 a tonne for freight that used to cost only $12 affects more than just farmers in rural Manitoba.
He was delivering his message about the need to get away from dependence on shipping out bulk agricultural commodities to a converted crowd.
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About 75 farmers, bureaucrats, bankers and community activists sat shoulder-to-shoulder in a long, narrow basement conference room to plot the strategy for a council that wants to help rural Manitoba make the change.
The Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council has more than $6 million to spend helping groups make changes. It recently held its inaugural annual meeting to decide how to distribute the money.
Routledge said Manitoba has to be braced for the next tidal wave, the world trade talks in 1999.
Preparing for U.S. subsidies
The United States has built up an arsenal of more than $2 billion in subsidies it could use if it doesn’t get its way with state trading agencies and supply management, he said.
“Although we may want to talk with our heart and defend with our heart, we’re going to be bleeding so profusely we won’t have a heart left,” Routledge said.
That’s why the council has to work with rural Manitobans to add value to bulk agricultural commodities, he said.
“Our whole economy depends on taking that next corner and surviving.”
Oliver Nelson told the council it should consider sponsoring research on why more First Nations people haven’t taken up farming.
Nelson, from the Roseau River Tribal Council, said by 2010, one of four employable people in Manitoba will be First Nations. Right now, most of them are unemployed.
“Believe it or not, we live out there in rural Manitoba too,” he said.
Reserves will own about 250,000 acres of arable land in the near future because of treaty land entitlements. Rather than renting it out to non-Indian farmers, First Nations people should explore the feasibility of farming it themselves, Nelson said.
Paula Braun said she got involved with the council because it always bothered her that farmers ship wheat to Ontario that comes back as Robin Hood flour. She hopes the council can get rural Manitoba to think of regional projects to benefit the biggest number of people.
“There’s a lot of jealousy between towns. They want to protect their own little turf,” said Braun, a grain farmer from Killarney.
“We have to start thinking bigger than that, we really do.”
Owen McAuley said he hopes the council will accelerate the growth in livestock numbers and processing that is already happening in the province.
“If you can see things happening around you, it’s a lot easier to accept the change,” he said.
One of the first items the council needs is a clear road map through a morass of government programs. It will have to pick a careful path to avoid duplicating what various provincial and federal government departments have already put into place to help farmers add value to raw agricultural products.
“You want to be very aware of what else is out there, or what else might be accessed,” said Jan Dyer, of Agriculture Canada.
“It’s really going to be complicated. It’s going to require a lot of judgment. It won’t be straightforward.”
The council has $4.3 million from a federal fund for adaptation, $1.9 million from the Crow transportation subsidy adjustment fund to be directed toward research, and $25,000 from the provincial government.
The council is similar to Alberta’s Agriculture and Food Council and the planned-but-not-established Saskatchewan Adaptation Rural Development Committee.
The Manitoba council expects to start taking applications for funding at the end of April.
