Canadian farm organizations are not speaking for all producers, according to a new public opinion survey of farmers.
One in 10 Canadian farmers say they do not feel represented by any existing farm group, says the survey conducted by Ipsos-Reid pollsters.
“I guess that caught me by surprise,” Ipsos-Reid vice-president Curtis Johnson said in a Jan. 24 interview from Winnipeg. “That is a lot of farmers who do not feel represented, who do not feel that their voice is being heard.”
The province with the highest level of disgruntlement with existing farm organizations is Saskatchewan, where 40 percent of farmers endorsed no existing group. Agricultural Producers’ Association of Saskatchewan won the embrace of just 20 percent of Saskatchewan farmers questioned, although the provincial sample was small and therefore less reliable.
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Those farmers who do feel represented are closer to their provincial organizations than national organizations. Among national farm organizations, the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association received much higher recognition than the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
However, many of the provincial organizations favoured by farmers to represent their views are members of the CFA.
Quebec’s Union des Producteurs Agricoles had the highest approval rating at 70 percent, while the Ontario Federation of Agriculture scored 50 percent support.
These were key findings of a late 2004 survey of 875 farmers across the country who gross at least $50,000 annually from their operations. Ipsos-Reid said the margin of error with that sample size is plus or minus 3.3 percent 19 times out of 20.
Farmers also said they look to provincial agriculture departments rather than to Agriculture Canada for farm management advice.
In fact, many of the top-of-the-mind issues for farmers during the October-November telephone survey were not the traditional farm safety net, government support issues usually identified with the federal government.
By a wide margin, Canadian farmers consider BSE and the resulting low prices and closed American border the most important issue facing them. That opinion was most prevalent in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario.
Led by Saskatchewan, low commodity prices were the second most frequently cited issue.
“A lot of farmers are extremely worried about their financial situation, their eroding equity, their ability to get credit for this year’s crop,” said Johnson. “That is reflected in the top two priorities.”
Trade barriers and trade policy ranked third, led by British Columbia farmers and followed by Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Although the survey was conducted in the midst of the Canadian Wheat Board elections when the debate about the board marketing monopoly was raging, the Ipsos-Reid survey suggests grain marketing choice is a key issue for few farmers, at least compared to other issues.
Only nine percent in Alberta, eight percent in Saskatchewan and five percent in Manitoba identified marketing choice as their key issue.
“I suspect that reflects how much BSE has swamped every other issue because many of those with opinions on the marketing issue also have cattle and that is a more in-your-face issue right now,” said Johnson.
