NEILBURG, Sask. – Plunging farm incomes are beginning to strangle the economy of this northwestern Saskatchewan town.
In some ways it’s subtle: The local recreation board is afraid to raise prices for hockey games and curling bonspiels because it fears people can’t afford it. It will probably lose money this year.
In other ways it’s obvious: The local Co-op farm supply centre has seen sales drop by $1.4 million so far this year, and expects remaining sales to dry up in the next month.
It’s going to be a long, cold winter in this town of about 400 people near the border with Alberta.
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On Nov. 25, the surrounding farming community cried out for help.
“We can’t take much more,” said Grant Wightman at the beginning of a farm aid rally that drew about 500 farmers and local residents to the community hall.
“I’m damned angry,” said Gerald Deck, a Denzil, Sask., farmer insulted by the federal agriculture minister’s suggestion that farmers get off-farm jobs to survive the winter.
“There has to be a living in this,” said Dave Lundquist of Maidstone, Sask.
“Don’t farm next year,” urged Neilburg, Sask., farmer Alex Herle, who can’t see a point in seeding another money-losing crop.
Apart from showing despair, outrage, upset and defiance, farmers at the rally also demanded a cash bailout of $80 per acre.
That’s double the amount demanded at a recent farm aid rally in North Battleford, Sask., but Neilburg-area farmers are dealing with a price crash and three years of drought.
Farmer Gail Forbes said her 1,500-acre farm will lose more than $110,000 this year. The average cash shortfall is $73.92 per acre.
“We do have an off-farm job, but it can’t compete with this,” said Forbes, whose husband couldn’t be at the rally because of his job.
Forbes’s $80 per acre demand drew sustained applause.
So did angry farmer denunciations of city people, professionals and unionized workers, who were accused of ignorance or being unsympathetic to farmers’ plights.
Saskatchewan agriculture minister Eric Upshall tried to use farmers’ anger to bolster his demand for federal cash.
“We got left in the lurch,” he said about Ottawa’s decision to dump the Crow grain transportation subsidy before other countries removed their grain subsidies.
Upshall attacked the suggestion that Saskatchewan should also supply cash aid.
“It’s like you’re hemorrhaging from a severe cut and people say ‘give yourself a blood transfusion.'”
Upshall repeated his demand for a short-term cash bailout and for a long-term farm income insurance program.
Reform party agriculture critic Howard Hilstrom criticized the federal government for being ill prepared. He also seemed to back away from his party’s opposition to short-term cash aid.
“When all farmers across the country start telling me and telling other MPs that we need some immediate short-term help, do you think that I am going to go down there and not represent you and say no we can’t have any short-term help?” said Hilstrom.
Alberta farmers at the rally said they were angry their provincial government did not send its agriculture minister. Instead, it sent a bureaucrat who was unable to answer political questions.
Across town at the farm supply centre, manager Miles O’Grady oversaw a slow sales day and pondered a grim winter ahead. He wondered how farmers can remain committed to paying their debts .
“I don’t know why all the bills have been paid,” he said. “I’m glad I’m not a credit manager.”
