Devising menus for agriculture a difficult task
Among my memorabilia are a couple of Canadian National Railway menus from 1959. Inscribed on the inside covers of each are these words: “Western Farm Delegates On to Ottawa.”
Four passenger trains, two Canadian Pacific and two Canadian National, took 1,100 farmers from across the west that year to Ottawa to impress prime minister John Diefenbaker with the need for deficiency payments on grain.
Grain returns were not adequate to cover the living costs of farmers and a comprehensive list of demands had been drawn up to present to the government. Since the prime minister was elected from Prince Albert constituency, he made a point of meeting the delegation at the Chateau Laurier and brought along an impressive segment of of his cabinet.
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He didn’t agree to deficiency payments but he did come through with acreage payments, solidifying his western political base.
This came to mind when I read that agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief is considering changing the Agricultural Income Disaster Assistance program to include negative margins so more of the $900 million allocated can be moved into farmer hands.
What goes around comes around.
I don’t suppose the perfect farm program will ever be devised. There are too many variables between farms and farm production systems. An argument against the 1959 deficiency payment idea was what means test do you use to decide the payment levels?
Using different words, carefully phrased in computer age lingo, Vanclief will have the same question.
And the answer is the same as 40 years ago: When agriculture flourishes the country flourishes. Just because a task is difficult one shouldn’t back off trying to complete it.
If agriculture is allowed to wither, the loonie (dollar) will be a pretty sick bird.
