A conservative think-tank critique that questions the value of the farmer empowerment recommendations made last summer by Liberal MP Wayne Easter is an attack on the role of farmers in policy making, says a National Farmers Union official.
NFU executive secretary Terry Pugh said in a Feb. 20 interview that a recent George Morris Centre analysis on the conclusions of the 2005 Easter report is an attack on his process of consultation with farmers.
“I think you have to see it as not only criticism of the Easter report itself but also criticism of the process itself,” he said. “Mr. Easter talked directly to farmers. The George Morris Centre is proposing closed focus groups across the country with corporate sponsors chipping in money to have a hand in the report.”
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The NFU has been one of the biggest boosters of the Easter report, compiled by Easter, a former NFU president.
The report concludes that a lack of market power is the primary problem facing money-losing farmers in a food system where most other players have healthy profits. Three decades of economic analysis that have called for bigger and more efficient farmers as the answer to farm income problems are wrong.
It suggests tougher competition rules, support for co-operatives, retention of such marketing institutions as the Canadian Wheat Board and supply management and rules that stress fair trade rather than free trade.
Pugh said the George Morris Centre report favours the current power system that has agribusiness in the profitable drivers’ seat. Agribusiness is the main financial support and membership of the Guelph-based agricultural think-tank.
Pugh rejected the centre’s allegation that the Easter report was unbalanced or one-sided. In fact, he was asked by the government of the day to examine the reasons for low farm income, said Pugh.
“I think to be fair, Mr. Easter looked at this very objectively, at the problem he was asked to examine and his conclusions struck a chord with farmers across the country,” Pugh said. “I would say the George Morris report will not strike any chord with farmers other than a bad one. It will find favour with the companies.”
Pugh also said the centre’s complaint that the Easter report promotes a farmers-against-the-rest-of-the-chain attitude rather than co-operation simply recognizes reality.
“There definitely are different interests,” he said. “Farmers want the best price they can get. The purchasers are looking for the cheapest input costs they can get. That’s reality.”
