Changing lifestyle
To the Editor:
I want to convey my concerns about the current economic problems in the farming community. As most of us know these problems trickle down and affect more than the agriculture sector.
The following information was gathered by myself from the Saskatoon Public Library. Comparison of farm costs in 1974 and 1989: diesel fuel – 6.5 cents per litre, 46 cents per litre; gasoline – 7 cents per litre, 45 cents per litre; electric power (three months) – 1974 $64, 1989 $290; 2,4-D (10 litres) – 1974 $19, 1989 $49; crop insurance (per acre) – 1974 $1.75, 1989 $4; tractor (125hp) – 1974 $17,540, 1989 $65,000 (120 hp); combine (6601) – 1974 $12,380, 1989 $50,000; half ton truck – 1974 $5,000, 1989 $18,000. …
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How do we justify the skyrocketing input costs compared to the stagnated price of a bushel of wheat? When and where will this end? Do the farmers of this country have to rise up like the European farmers do? I would like to think not.
Why do we sell our wheat to the country elevator, and then have to pay to ship it? Why is the worker at the west coast shipyard getting $30 plus dollars per hour to load our wheat?
What would happen if all the prairie farmers got together and didn’t sell their wheat, barley and milk for a year? Who would be making the noise then?
But we know this won’t happen because farmers need to pay their bills and couldn’t survive one year without income. This is why I believe nothing is being done about the situation. I think, this time, it won’t just go away quietly. …
I am contemplating taking over the family farm from my mother, who would like to retire. I don’t think she wants me to go through the hard times to which there don’t seem to be an end.
But farming is in my blood, and I probably will go through with it anyway. There is no better lifestyle, but it is not like it used to be.
– Jodi Edstrom,
Saskatoon, Sask.
Sue gov’t
To the Editor:
Re: Dwain Lingenfelter and Roy Romanow suing the federal government to recoup money lost when the Western Grain Transportation Act was cancelled in 1995.
This is an interesting idea. Does it have any merit? In deciding the merit these questions have never been fully answered:
1) Was the cancellation of the Western Transportation Act a necessity as expressed by Ag Canada to western producers?
2) If that is the case, why is there a subsidy disparity between Canadian, American and EU producers? It seems Canadian producers have lost a lot of ground in that area.
3) Was the zealousness of Canadian negotiators an attempt to reduce Canadian government payments to farmers?
From my perspective, and on the basis of the information I have read, I think the idea of suing has merit. I think we were sold a bill of goods by the government of Canada and were given the Crow Benefit package under the impression that if we didn’t take it, it would have to be cancelled and producers would get nothing.
In short, on the basis of where subsidies have gone from 1995 to 1999, the argument used by Ag Canada was so far removed from reality that it borders on fraud.
The most disturbing aspect of the whole thing is that we are at WTO trade talks again. The big question is, do we have the same negotiators as last time?
I hope not. If these negotiators were in the private sector (say for a union) and the contract they negotiated had such severe economic repercussions they would have been turfed. Period.
I would suggest that the government has two choices: Subsidy equalization payment to bring Canadian subsidies in line with U.S. and EU subsidies; or defend against a class action suit by western farmers for using false information in achieving cancellation of the Western Transportation Act.
– Duane Filkowski,
Coalhurst, Alta.
Tax benefits
To the Editor:
In the last year or two it has become a very popular notion to complain about high taxes not just provincially but also federally. Political parties of all stripes are making great promises about lowering taxes while making promises to improve services.
I’m sure that none of us like paying taxes, but I’m old enough to have seen a different time and circumstances. I’m 70 years old and have been retired from farming four years now.
When I started farming in 1947 we paid $135 taxes on two quarters of land. Now the taxes on the same two quarters of land are $1,614, which works out to 12 times as much.
However, in 1947 you could buy a new car for $1,500. Now the same size car will cost you at least 16 times as much money.
You could have built a good house in 1947 for $10,000 with electricity, plumbing and central heating for less than $10,000. Now the same house will cost at least $120,000 or 12 times as much.
In 1947 our taxes were little, but all weather roads were non-existent, dirt roads on 66 foot right of way, no gravel, trees and weeds in the ditches, impassable in rainy weather in summer, and blocked with first snow and wind in winter sometimes from November to April. Provincial highways on the prairies were little better than the municipal roads, mostly gravel and practically no pavement.. …
Today our roads are such that we can drive … any time winter or summer. Electric power is all over the prairies. Farms and small towns have sewer and water. Telephone service is excellent and reliable medical services are good compared to 1947 and available to all.
A whole generation has grown up not having seen conditions as they were and an older generation seems to have forgotten. …
For those politicians that are always promising better roads, better health care, better police protection, more money for the armed forces and all this while promising to lower our taxes. I don’t know how they are going to do it. …
– Gerald Piprell,
Borden, Sask.
Don’t bash
To the Editor:
A group of letters in the Nov. 25 Producer prompt this response. I have great empathy for the farming community during this difficult period. I am not a farmer, but I have been a rural citizen for most of my 57 years. My family roots are farm and I have owned and worked in farm related industries, as well as others, sometimes at labor.
I believe I have a good grasp of the difficulties faced by farmers and support their efforts for a better life and a more secure income from the family farm.
I feel it is important for farmers to get the support of urban folks to move the politicians in the right directions to enhance farming and the farm economy.
The letters to which I take exception are those that say working people are overpaid, the taxation levels should remain high and the consumer cost of food is too low to support viable farms.
That kind of rhetoric will never garner support from city people. To cite the number of loaves of bread or bottles of whiskey from a bushel and then compare the price to the farmgate price is silly.
What is actually being said is that the cost of labor is causing high prices and nobody is making money on the production of farm goods except working people. Tell that to me again and see how long I feel I can support your objectives, mister farmer.
Nearly all the people I know descended from farm families and I wonder if those farmers wish poverty on their own off-the-farm families too?
I also do not see how high taxes help the farmer, unless the writer was thinking of a tax on food going directly to the farmer.
Go ahead I say, if you want further alienation. We are taxed to the tune of about 55 percent of our total income by the various levels of government on our working salaries, and have to work until July each year, in Saskatchewan, before we get a buck to buy food for our families….
We, the working class and the farmers, must be united to make our governments act responsibly and not get caught up in things like globalization, world trade rules that threaten our autonomy, and corporations that have no other agenda than getting bigger and making more money….
I hope this prompts some forward thinking. I just want to indicate that co-operation instead of bashing each other is a better solution. It seems like the Europeans understand this.
– Daryl Strayer,
Fort Qu’Appelle, Sask.
