Food Freedom Day No Break For Farmers

[farmers_son]

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/02/12/consumer-food-freedom-dat.html

Food Freedom Day no break for farmers
Cheap-food policy puts squeeze on producers
Last Updated: Friday, February 12, 2010 | 2:41 PM ET Comments45Recommend20CBC News

Food Freedom Day landed 43 days into the new year in 2010. (Associated Press)
Friday marks Food Freedom Day in Canada, meaning it took 43 days for the average Canadian household to earn enough money to buy groceries for a year.

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has been marking Food Freedom Day for several years.

Last year, it also took 43 days to reach Food Freedom Day, an indication of how inexpensive food is in Canada, said Bette Jean Crews, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

"That's why it fell so early in the year," said Crews, who is also a farmer in the Trenton area.

Food Freedom Day is modelled after the better known Tax Freedom Day, which calculates how many days it takes for Canadians to work to pay taxes levied by various governments. Last year, Tax Freedom Day was June 6, three days earlier than in 2008.

Farmers' share declines
For Food Freedom Day 2010, the CFA reviewed food prices over the past 30 years at both the farm gate and at retail levels. The CFA says the statistics show an increasing gap between retail price of food and the price farmers are paid for production.

Prairie members of the CFA recently commissioned a study, entitled Farmers' Share, which found that farmers get back just 27 per cent of money spent by an average family on groceries.

"While prices Ontarians pay for food has been steadily increasing over the past 30 years, the farmers' share is relatively small," says Crews.

Crews said one of the major reasons is the downward pressure that Canada's three major retailers are able to put on prices paid to producers.

Farmers have also been forced to absorb the costs of new regulations, ranging from those that require food to be traced through all levels of production and processing to regulations that protect at-risk species.

Crews said some farmers have had to take hundreds of hectares of land out of production because of the Jefferson salamander, which is an at-risk species, nationally. While she supports such protection, she said there are better ways than simply marking off agricultural land, with no reimbursement to the farmer.

"If a farmer rents his land to another producer, he gets rent. The salamander doesn't pay rent," said Crews.

"We have a cheap food policy in Canada," said Crews. "But the farmer is bearing the burden of that cheap food policy."


Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/02/12/consumer-food-freedom-dat.html#ixzz0fYcqj9mU

[per]

The burden is noticeable. Something is going to break sooner rather than later.

[grassfarmer]

"Prairie members of the CFA recently commissioned a study, entitled Farmers' Share, which found that farmers get back just 27 per cent of money spent by an average family on groceries."
I guess someone, somewhere must be getting a better share than beef producers then. The NFU report indicated less than 16% of retail beef dollar returned to them.

[kato]

They probably included milk and poultry.

[PureCountry]

What do you think the percentage of consumer's dollar goes to the producer when he/she becomes processor, distributor and retailer?

We can grovel at the trough for more gruel, but the only thing stopping a farmer from filling the trough themselves is the affliction of blindness. Open your eyes and see that you CAN take control.

[grassfarmer]

Good point PureCountry, I'd never thought to work out that percentage.
When I do I see that the % of retail price we receive for retailing and distribution of our direct marketed beef is 70%. That is maybe why it feels a lot better than selling commodity cattle where it is under 16%.

[per]

According to Charlie Gracy's work the Cow Calf takes 17%, feedlot 17% Packer 7% and the retailer over 50%. Of course year to year these numbers change and the one thing constant is that the retailers share goes up year after year.

[smcgrath76]

Well,if you take 27% as the average
farmer's share Food Ingredient freedom day
was on January 12th(actually January 11th
about noon). We need to stretch the days
out a bit.
I agree pretty closely with those
percentages 17, 17, 7, 50, the difference
is in the amount of investment in capital,
labour, etc. to generate that revenue.

[skhadenuf]

Just curious, so what is being proposed here is farmer owned retail outlets for beef? This means no beef at all other than imports at the meat departments of Super Store, Safeway, Sobey's etc, etc,? Unless you have your federal ag minister on side to eliminate these imports do you think this will really work?
don't get me wrong as a grain producer I am envious of the fact so many of you in the cattle business may be ready finally to take your industry back, and in fact I would offer anything I could do to help out, but when the corporates offer lower imported beef at their outlets even if they only break even on beef can you compete?
I think we in the ag industry need an ag minister that actually wants to save our industries grain and livestock, and also have a vision to do so other than letting the corporates rake us over that,s where this has to start imo.

[PureCountry]

I am not proposing any solutions for anyone else - tried playing politics before and I'll have no part now. What I meant was to illustrate a point that we can't keep thinking of ourselves as JUST producers. We can be that, as well as the retailer if we take our products to farmer's markets, set up on-farm stores, open butcher shops in our own towns, the options go on and on and on. The first step is to realize that we have the power to do what we want, it's one of the few good things left about this country.

As far as an Agriculture Minister being the 1st step, I look at it the opposite way. Think of what would happen if even 25% of grain and/or livestock producers quit that and switched to growing organic vegetables. Then they take them to farmer's markets and sell out every week, with droves of people swarming the markets to buy locally grown produce. Would it create change? Would it create at least some noise?

What makes politicians pay attention? Consumer spending, and consumer's votes. Grass roots change must come first, then you'll see politicians actually follow suit. They never lead the way and break new ground.

[rkaiser]

Amen PC.... Politics has little more to do with reality in my mind every day.

The only thing we need to consider is that we live in a free country and we are free to create and do business. Thanks go to past politicians and maybe a large number of soldiers from our past.

Wars are now fought in the economic battlefield and those who learn how to move swiftly and cunningly will gain a lot more ground if they stay away from the politicians.

Or maybe simply sue them...

[skhadenuf]

Well I respect your opinions it's your industry but I think that will take a very very long time to make much of an impact, and will require massive downsizing, there is only so much local market, as long as the foreign stuff comes in and comes in unbelievably with less restrictions etc.
Politics affects everything whether we want to ignore it or not I don't think we elect them to follow or at least that's not my thinking they need to lead by providing opportunity not let an entire industry go down the tubes, saying hey that's free market at work, because it ain't free when the guys raking us over get all the tax breaks, grants, and trade deals to suit them and not us, certainly don't need any that don't give a dam about the industry they represent.
In actuality the cattle business represents another piece of our total society here that is loosing out to other countries that we used to look at as the have nots, their governments have direction and vision and are wiping the floor with our politicians, just a another industry not going to be producing here, pretty soon we won't be considered able to produce anything here, and that is due to trade deals.
But Good Luck!!

[skip]

Who said the governments even care about farmers....as long as there is lots of cheap food...the voting masses keep happy. So what if a few farmers go down...nobody but the farmers are starving/broke...