The beef, potatoes, corn, beans, salad, pickles and strawberries would be on the table at suppertime.
“Look at that,” a family member would say. “Everything we’re eating tonight was grown right here on this farm.”
It was a satisfying notion, evoking pride in self-sufficiency, at least for that moment and that meal. It brought a more complete recognition of the wealth provided through the land and the work of the hands and bodies that gathered around the table.
And when we sat back, over dessert, and thought about the investment, the inputs, the bank interest, the sweat equity – we also realized those sweetest of meals were anything but cheap.
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You could say a day with a meal like that was a food freedom day at the grassroots, not the food freedom day celebrated nationally on Feb. 7, the day when, on average, most Canadians have earned enough money to pay the annual grocery bill.
According to official food freedom day calculations, Canadians spend about 10.5 percent of their total income on food, less than consumers in France or Japan, for example, where in 2001 consumers paid 14.4 and 14.7 percent respectively. Here, we can buy a year’s worth of good, safe food in just 38 days.
And yet, while consumers saw food prices rise nine percent between 1997 and 2001, farmers saw only a two percent increase in the price received for their goods. Those increases were eaten, and then some, by rising input costs.
There is disturbing irony in the fact that food freedom day came only one day after a dire federal government announcement: that 2002 realized net farm income (income calculated before allowances for labour costs or other payments to farm family members) is expected to be the lowest ever recorded at negative $13.4 million.
Saskatchewan realized net farm income could drop 177 percent to negative $465 million. Alberta could be down 125 percent to negative $230 million. Manitoba could drop by 78 percent, yet still cling to positive numbers.
So let’s recap.
Consumers are getting good safe food and paying for it with 10.5 percent of their annual income.
Farmers are producing good safe food and going broke doing it.
What’s wrong with this picture? Government blames BSE, the rising value of the dollar, lingering effects of the drought.
These are contributing factors, but the seeds of farm income collapse must have been sown long before 2002-03.
Self-sufficient farmers are becoming the stuff of anecdote. It is a sorry place to be.
Not so cold
I just read a reply to a letter in the open forum by a lady from Surrey B.C. (Jan. 8) who chooses not to live in Saskatchewan because of the cold weather she remembers from the 1950s.
Well, we have moved ahead 50 years. Things do not stay the same. We do not live in cold houses without insulation and our heating systems are the best.
Guess what? We really do have running water and electricity. I think you should make a visit back here and quit thinking in the ’50s. It will open your mind.
We have experienced a climate change in the last 10 years and we barely have enough snow cover on the ground, which is causing summer droughts. If we did get a lot of snow we have snow plows and 4 x 4 trucks that go anywhere. We also have snowmobiles, not horses and cabooses. News clips this winter showed how much snow B.C. got. Please send us some.
As for living in B.C., I have family there and go there several times a year. It is beautiful but it also has its drawbacks. People live wall to wall, crime is rampant and homes are invaded every day. Where I live it is peaceful.
We don’t build our houses on mountain tops or underneath cliffs that topple and destroy everything in its path in a weather disaster, nor do we live in dense forests where forest fires can wipe you out in 10 minutes and we don’t fear earthquakes and tidal waves.
Choose to live where you wish but the hardships you experienced in the ’50s no longer exist. Almost half the people that live in B.C. were born in Saskatchewan or have family that did. Living in B.C. does not make you better than us.
This area has lots of beautiful things, peaceful places, and friendly down to earth people who make you very welcome. …
– Bernice Tiringer,
Spiritwood, Sask.
No implants
Regarding the article on growth hormone implants in the WP (Jan. 8), we will never get our beef into Britain as long as we continue to use implants.
Canadians don’t realize how much the British consumer is against hormones and genetically modified organisms. They have had food scares for over 10 years. Salmonella in eggs, BSE, E. coli in cold cuts and foot-and-mouth.
Even though scientists say they are safe, you won’t convince the British consumer.
Britain is only 65 percent self-sufficient in beef. Are we going to wait for other countries to fill this void? Surely we are better to take $25 to $75 a head less than nothing at all.
– Andrew Stewart,
Cupar, Sask.
CWB trouble
Elected director and chairman of the Canadian Wheat Board, Ken Ritter, suggests his CWB is the Wayne Gretzky of wheat and barley marketing in the world.
On Dec. 15, the CWB issued a press release to detail the fact there was an $85 million deficit in the wheat pool account and consequently no final payment.
The only real surprise is that it isn’t a lot bigger. Wheat prices peaked in October 2002 at over $8 per bushel.
The CWB had already been out of the market since early August, reportedly costing producers $500 million.
The CWB was not only out of the market, but also according to their background to the Dec. 15 press release, they were forced to buy back wheat, which they had wholesaled at fire sale prices prior to Aug.1, 2002.
Why would the CWB dump wheat in the face of a pending drought and extremely tight wheat stocks?
The CWB generates income by lending money at high interest rates to poor countries with no credit rating. If these countries make their interest payments, the spread is put into the net interest earning account.
If they default on their principal payments, the CWB sends the bill to the federal government to add to the $7 billion already owed by the taxpayer.
There is a reported $54 million net interest earnings. What percentage of this was used to bring down the wheat pool deficit?…
Apparently the CWB didn’t hedge any rise in the Canadian dollar. How much did this cost producers and are they hedging in 2003-2004? …
If Reg Alcock cannot implement voluntary choice marketing in Western Canada, at least he should insist on a new marketing team and a new CEO.
Farmers bent on maintaining the CWB monopoly should be prepared to pay for its mistakes.
Reg Alcock should invoice the farmers who benefited from the $85 million deficit. After all, the taxpayer is already on the hook for over $7 billion….
The CWB has $4.5 billion a year at their disposal, no consequences, no accountability, no vested interest and no mandate to maximize profits for the producer.
In 20 years the CWB has created enough debts to absorb two complete crops. Where does it stop? …
– Ron Duffy,
Lacombe, Alta.
Consider ranchers
I have been hearing reports that within a year electronic ear buttons will be required for all cattle leaving the farm.
When Canadian Cattle Identification Agency ear tags became mandatory, it did not require a big effort or outlay of cash on the part of the rancher.
Most of us were tagging already. The increased cost was only 20 to 40 cents per tag. Calves can be tagged at birth without being restrained.
Electronic buttons will be quite a different matter, however.
These devices will normally be installed when cattle are shipped. Every one of these cattle will have to be run through a head gate. At three to four minutes per head, this will require five to 6.5 hours for a truckload of a 100 calves.
This means the job would have to be done the day before shipping. The result is more stress, greater shrink and less money in the pocket of the rancher.
In addition the cost of the buttons is 10 times the increased cost of the CCIA ear tags over regular tags.
And finally, we will still need to use ear tags for our own purposes. Electronic buttons cannot be read in the pasture.
Even in the corral, most cattlemen will find using the electronic system more cumbersome than a visual system.
Electronic buttons may be helpful to large slaughter houses but the dangle tag is much superior from a producer point of view.
Let’s give some consideration to the rancher when these policy changes are being made.
– Gordon McGillivray,
Rapid View, Sask.
APAS funding
I would like to respond to Vera Shamon’s comments in the open forum Nov. 27 issue. …
I was a councillor for 11 years and for the last five years have served as reeve of the RM of Emerald. The count on the resolution was closer to 45 to 55 rather than a one-third to two-thirds as reported.
Nowhere in our resolution is there mentioned to force anyone to join APAS (Agricultural Producers of Saskatchewan.)
Vera Shamon’s comments of $1.25 million in APAS revenue being diverted from RM’s gravel, equipment cost accounts I found to be very ill informed. I think that is a very minuscule amount of money when you think in terms that APAS is lobbying both levels of governments and consumers on behalf of Saskatchewan farmers.
When you think in narrower terms remember that the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool president salary is more than that.
Vera Shamon’s view that a vote of five to two (RM of Biggar council) is not democratic seems very ironic. I would be in favour of a check-off system for funding APAS but I do not believe that would make it more democratic.
Tell me how a system of negative billing is more democratic, especially when you have to apply by a certain arbitrary date to get your money back. Also it would be an administrative nightmare for our administrators. …
I personally do not agree with all the policies of APAS or the political party I support but they were passed by a majority of the duly elected representatives.
Vera Shamon, that is how democracy works. Fellow ratepayers, councillors and reeves, as rural people we have less political representation in provincial and federal governments every year due to rural depopulation. Now more than ever we need a well-funded, democratically elected organization like APAS to lobby for us to these governments.
Let’s give APAS the funding and support they need and deserve to continue the excellent job they are doing.
– Gerald Faye,
Wishart, Sask.
