Spending much of three weeks travelling the country from British Columbia to New Brunswick listening to MPs listen to young farmer concerns was bound to produce some food for thought.What follows are three examples, quotes from government MPs that should set farmers and policy makers to thinking:* More than once, Ontario Conservative Larry Miller, chair of the House of Commons agriculture committee, mused that since products exported are essentially production surplus to Canadian needs, is it fair to ask taxpayers to support publicly financed farm programs that essentially help foreign consumers buy inexpensive Canadian produce?”I don’t think we should or can subsidize exports but I do believe we have to find a way to support domestic producers with another avenue to deal with exports,” he said. “I don’t know how you do that but it is something we have to think about.”Indeed it is.As an Ontario beef producer, Miller said he is fully aware of and supportive of the need for exports in the cattle industry. But if producer losses on exports are back-filled by government programs, is that fair or logical farm policy?The policy debate is often about the inappropriateness of subsidizing exports. Can we have a policy that differentiates between support for products destined for the domestic market and no support for products destined for export?It is a good question.* At a hearing in Sussex, New Brunswick, Ontario Conservative Pierre Lemieux, parliamentary secretary to agriculture minister Gerry Ritz, responded to a complaint about unresponsive government programs for red meat producers facing years of losses.Governments always have to balance political pressure to help producers with the requirement not to mask or distort market signals, he said. If there is a multi-year decline or loss in a sector, “perhaps it is a signal the market is changing,” he said. “Governments have to be careful not to mask a market reality.”For years, some farm leaders have suspected the advent of unreliable programs that support farmers based on historic losses, sending out cheques years after the bills had to be paid, is a signal. Bureaucrats designed the programs and sold them to Liberal and Conservative governments, suggesting that if farmerscan’t make money over three years, they should consider the construction trade.This glimpse of the “survival of the fittest” philosophy would be well worth pursuing.* At the end of a committee hearing in Wiarton, Ont., in his own riding, Miller was asked if the committee planned to call Agriculture Canada bureaucrats later to talk about young farmer-friendly policies.”The bureaucracy in Ottawa doesn’t give a damn about programs that help farmers,” he said. “They find ways to make sure programs don’t pay out. And you can quote me on that.”Consider it done.It probably does not need a lot of deep thinking but if that is the opinion of an influential government MP, wouldn’t it be worth calling senior agriculture bureaucrats to account at Hill hearings? Just a thought.
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