IT MUST be confusing for Americans sometimes, trying to figure out Canada’s fractious system of farm politics.
Consider, for example, the uproar that followed the announcement last week by the corn industries of Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec that they plan to use Canada’s trade remedy laws to challenge American farm subsidies.
An American observer could be forgiven for imagining that the news would be greeted enthusiastically in Canada.
After all, if there is one thing that seems to unite Canadian farmers, it is anger about a U.S. system that subsidizes American farmers, encourages them to overproduce and then effectively depresses world prices by putting that product on the market at less than the cost of production.
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It is an article of faith among Canadian farmers that the American farm bill and the subsidized products it produces are one of the major causes of Canada’s chronic problem of low farm incomes.
Complaining about the farm bill in Canadian farm country is as popular as complaining about the weather.
So when the corn producers decided to challenge the system and to try to get countervail and anti-dumping duties levied against American corn coming into Canada, an American observer might logically have predicted farmers would applaud the move and cheer on the Canadian David prepared to replace anti-Goliath rhetoric with a challenge.
How wrong they would be.
Instead, the corn producers were lambasted by critics who complained that it will raise the cost of feeding livestock, make Canada’s ethanol producers less competitive and generally hurt Canada’s farm economy far more than the United States.
The trade challenge was denounced as shortsighted and selfish.
Corn producers were accused of betraying other farmers for their own short-term interests, of undermining efforts in Ontario to create a united voice for farmers.
Ontario’s cattle feeders were the most vitriolic, suggesting the U.S. would retaliate and other sectors would be hurt.
“There are better ways to resolve this,” said the Ontario Cattle Feeders’ Association.
Really? Well, let’s hear them.
That’s the rub.
The critics may be correct that hearings into whether American corn exports are dumped into Canada will not accomplish much. Those who use corn as a feedstock undoubtedly are correct that their costs will increase and it is in their legitimate self-interest to protest.
But what is the alternative? Other than using the existing countervail and anti-dump laws, what can producers do if they feel they are facing unfair competition?
For two decades since the 1985 farm bill ratcheted up the subsidy wars, Canada’s main reaction has been to complain and to see the solution as being a long-term World Trade Organization deal that will have the U.S. agree to cutting subsidies.
But that is a long-term prospect in the best of circumstances and many critics question if it will ever happen.
So even if the critics are correct that the corn industry’s proposed cure is worse than the disease, they have an obligation to propose a better way.
Sitting around complaining while prices and farm incomes continue to fall doesn’t seem like a sensible long-term strategy.
