FARMERS usually are loath to praise governments for help they get,
presumably for fear that politicians might begin to develop pretensions
of adequacy and relevance.
So the pattern is established: governments announce aid packages and
the best they can hope for is “too little, too late.”
As often as not, they are told that the proffered help is an insult,
part of the problem or worse than nothing.
So governments can expect little farmer praise for last year. That’s a
Read Also
Crop insurance’s ability to help producers has its limitations
Farmers enrolled in crop insurance can do just as well financially when they have a horrible crop or no crop at all, compared to when they have a below average crop
pity for those who believe that governments can be part of the
solution, that governments and public policy can be a positive force in
levelling out economic extremes and that market forces are not
necessarily the last word in economic wisdom or logic.
If there ever was a year in which government-supported programs came
through for farmers, it was last year.
Total realized net income (revenues minus expenses and depreciation) in
Canada last year was $4.68 billion. Total payments from programs
supported by federal and provincial governments, as well as farmers in
some cases, totalled $3.75 billion, 80 percent of the total.
On the Prairies, program payments represented 62 percent of realized
net income in Manitoba, 74 percent in Alberta and more than 100 percent
in Saskatchewan. In Saskatchewan, a tripling of realized net farm
income was due entirely to a massive increase in program payments.
“With all those program payments, we were able to capture over $900
million,” Saskatchewan agriculture minister Clay Serby said last week.
This year, crop insurance payments in Saskatchewan alone will be close
to $1 billion, he said.
It often outrages farmers when it is suggested their livelihood comes
from tax dollars.
It makes them sound like welfare recipients when they work hard and do
not get paid enough, they say. It isn’t often recognized how much
farmers contribute through taxes and premiums to those programs, some
argue. Since their income problems are related to weather or market
dysfunction factors outside their control, it is unfair to point out
how much support they get, others complain.
Farmers always would prefer to get their money from the market. Why
highlight farmer dependence on government?
All these points carry validity but there is one bottom line: without
massive support from publicly supported programs, the Prairie farm
economy would have been much weaker last year and many more farmers
would have faced losses.
Adequate or not, Canadian taxpayer support for the farm community last
year was substantial.
Western farmers said repeatedly this past summer that they were touched
by the generosity shown by easterners in the Hay West campaign.
Repeatedly, western farmers expressed gratitude for the solidarity from
an Eastern Canada often considered indifferent or hostile to the West.
Still, the greatest and less-heralded contribution that eastern
Canadians made to the western farm economy last year was their tax
dollars pouring into farm programs that receive little credit.
So just this once, and briefly, let’s hear it for government programs
that worked and the politicians and taxpayers who made it possible.
