Why aren’t farmers benefiting from Canada’s booming export trade?
That’s the question the National Farmers Union was considering at its July national board meeting in Saskatoon.
“The actual producers do worse and worse as the export trade grows,” said NFU president Nettie Wiebe. “Investment is high, debt loads are high and our incomes are low.”
Wiebe challenged provincial and federal agriculture ministers to include needs of farmers when they set export targets. The ministers recently declared they want Canada to be exporting $40 billion in agricultural products by 2005.
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Wiebe said agricultural exports have doubled in the past 10 years, to more than $20 billion per year, but farm incomes are stagnant.
“This is good for the trade, it may be good for the processor, it’s good for the exporter, but for the primary producer, the family farm … this is a pernicious agenda.”
At the meeting, NFU executive members mulled over the effects that international trade agreements are having on Canadian farmers. They brought in a speaker from the Dutch embassy in Washington and an American cattle producer.
Dena Hoff, a Montana cattle producer, said the American slaughter business is getting so concentrated that producers have no real choice of buyer. Without competition, producers are captive sellers, Hoff said.
American farmers are also being squeezed out by intensive livestock operations, which receive much government support, she said.
Wiebe said Canada’s agriculture ministers have too readily accepted the idea that increasing world trade is always good, and that getting bigger is getting better.
“It’s an undeniable pattern,” said Wiebe. “They’re saying goodbye to the family. That era’s over. Hello to corporate agriculture.”
