While some government critics last week praised the federal government for its decision to release less-than-favorable prairie farm income projections to the year 2003, Agricore president Charlie Swanson was not one of them.
The Winnipeg-based grain company leader said it was irresponsible.
Depressing predictions send a signal to other Canadians that prairie agriculture is a basket case and will be for some years.
And it tells farmers that they have to hang on for at least another five years before good times can be
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expected.
“It is a very negative message to be sending,” said the Agricore president. “Farmers are capable of recognizing their own particular circumstances. Then to have the government tell them there is no hope on the horizon is very, very unfortunate.”
Swanson said in a July 23 interview from Winnipeg that government economists cannot possibly know or be capable of guessing commodity prices, input costs and trade figures for years after 2000.
Yet last week they did just that, projecting that in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, realized net farm income will be depressed at least until the year 2003.
A number of farm leaders and economists last week said that projections much beyond this year are highly speculative and assume that existing conditions will not change.
“It is very difficult to forecast economics and we have seen some great variations and turnarounds in the past,” said University of Guelph agricultural economist George Brinkman.
Government representatives joined the chorus of those who said Agriculture Canada projections should not be taken as gospel.
“I always have marveled at how someone can project three or four years down the road,” said federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief, whose departmental economists did the calculations.
He said the better prices of 1997 have disappeared for some commodities in the past year. “Who could have predicted that?”
But few were as critical of the exercise as Swanson.
“I think the issuing of these numbers is a disservice,” he said. “Beyond this year, they cannot be justified or backed up.”
