Who will pay?

[kato]

I think the importance to the economy will probably show up when the economic indicators for the second half of this year are released. This will take a bit of time though.

The numbers they released last week already showed a hit to the economy. When you think about it, I believe the numbers were as of the first half of the year. This includes 23 weeks of "good times" (remember that prices were pretty decent before May 20), and only 6 weeks of "bad times". The next indicators will show a lot more weeks of "bad times"! If it shows up on the business news, then it will really exist in most peoples minds.

[15444]

Once the economists start reporting a major decline in the economy and attribute that, in a large part, to the BSE crisis, people's conclusions on the whole thing will turn around.

[ivbinconned]

Is agriculture important to the city folks? Let me just start counting the ways. In Sask. the average farm pays more than 4 times as much education tax as the urbanite and we get less, much less in the way of facilities, programs.
When I used to grow that malt barley and would take off a good crop it would amount to a gross of 25 to 30 thousand from a quarter. But then...when the finished product would hit the store shelf the Provincial and Federal goverments would step up and rake in....$1,250,000.00 plus in revenue from the crop off just one quarter! Do we contribute, yes, big time.
It would be great if in all ag products there was a free and open market ( free of gov. support) but that is something that has never been and never will be.
Since the time of Kings, food (grain etc) has always been used as a political tool to be used to manipulate something or some one.
But in this country when we have voices from the west advancing ideas like free markets, no subsidies etc, no supports etc. we have a federal goverment that says OK that is fine with us. Then lavishly supports agriculture in Quebec where it is clearly understood, that if the primary producer does well...everybody does well.
Sorry for the rant...must be the decafe she's got me on...

[cowman]

How does the federal government support agriculture"lavishly" in Quebec? Are they getting more than the rest of us? Or is it their own provincial government doing the supporting? I ask because I really have no clue...thought they got the shaft just like the rest of us!
I get a little worried when people start talking about "free markets". Free for who? Free for the little guy or the big corporations? If the whole world abandoned all trade barriers and eliminated all subsidies would we be better off? The primary producer and the consumer? Now I think Cargill and Safeway might be a whole lot better off but I doubt the farmer in Canada, USA, or Europe would be better off.
We tend to think if those Europeans and Americans would cut out their subsidies we would knock their socks off in the world marketplace...when in fact South America would probably knock us off!
This whole globalization thing is designed to take us all to the lowest common denominator while the profits roll in for big business. So do we want to have a standard of living like the peasants in Africa, South America, Asia? Living in a mud hut might be a bit uncomfortable in Alberta in January?

[cowman]

One other thing. If the federal government gave $700 for each cow they ran in the pit and they killed off 650,000 cows it works out to about $455 million. A lot of money but not a great amount...afterall they've blown a way more on things like gun control, bilingualism, the patronage scandal thing etc.
Of course it would cost a few bucks to dig the holes and they might have some trouble rounding up the guns and ammo!And of course there would be the paperwork, environmental studies,public relations and safety concerns. So it could sneak up to that one billion figure pretty easy or more depending on how silly they get!
Might be better to just give the farmer $700/cow and let him shoot her out in the back forty and let the coyotes handle all the paperwork?

[rsomer]

Cowman: The federal government provides transfer payments to Quebec even though it is a resource rich province. The Quebec provincial government takes some of this money and supports the agriculture industry in the province very well, I believe more than any other province although Alberta's farmers have received a lot of support from its government lately. As well the federal government is sensitive to the Quebec issue when developing ag programs for the rest of the country. Just so there is no bad mouthing about Quebec farmers, it was a farmer in Quebec who sent the load of hay we got last summer from Hay West. If another province wanted to support their industry to the same extent as Quebec I am sure those farmers would take the money too.

Your comments about South America and globalization are very insightful, right on. As farmers we believe we would be better off if government was out of the market place allowing us to operate in a "free market" but it is not so. Primary agriculture operates in a nearly pure competitive environment which might sound good but what that really means is that competition inevitably is driving all the profit out of the industry. Governments tend to provide what competitive advantage is available to agriculture in this country and all countries in the developed world. Without government support from the taxpayers in one form or another, all us farmers would not much better off than peasants in our own country, as you pointed out. Even in South America, for example Brazil, the governments supports agriculture but the nature of that support might be changing.

For some insight into government taxpayer support of Canada’s ag industry from another country's viewpoint see:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/canada/policy.htm

also the world situation at: http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/wto/

[ivbinconned]

From 1991 to 1999, there was a 78%reduction in direct federal expenditures in support of the agri-food sector in sask. and a 69% reduction for Alberta.In the same time period there was only a 27% reduction in Quebec. I am NOT bad mouthing the Quebec farmer but I do "bad mouth" a system that bleeds money from Alberta to "lavishly" support farms in another province. If Alberta farmers don't mind this atleast you would think they would rise up and insist that the money goes to there neighboring province where there grandpa and uncles farm.
Now that, is just the federal expenditures! What about the "lavish" support of Alberta dollars the Quebec farmer gets through there provincial goverment via federal transfers...hush,hush...were not suposed to know. While I have seen my saskatchewan assets drop in value 50% in the last 10 to 15 years, in Quebec the high level of Quebec goverment support is a major reason why average net worth of grain and oil seed producers increased 51.3% compared to 12.7 per cent in Ontario from 93 to 97; during the same period, average assets in Quebec increased by 53.5 per cent compared to 15.8% in Ontario.
When total crop receipts for Quebec were just $1.3 billion as compared to Ontarios $3.1 billion the Quebec Ag ministry spent $527 million while Ontario's spent just $372 million! Neat what you can do as a "have not" province while Alberta sleeps.
I have said it before in these threads, what does a pick pocketer do? He makes you look the other way! So we are told to look and blame the U.S. and Europe, while with in our own country the 21 year old Quebec ASRA programs (indirectly funded with ALBERTA money)heaps impressive benifits on, for example, a 780 acre corn grower over a 9 year period ending in 99 amounted to $580,000, or an average of $64,445 per year with a 99 provision of $99,480! Not bad eh!
This program now inludes all ag production and guess what, it is acreage based, cost of production based, and also has an interesting aspect to it in that the benifits are based on %90 of a skilled workers wages in Quebec, ie. nurse, teacher, goverment employees, etc.
Could this be why the average age of farmers in Quebec is much much lower than say Saskatchewan.
Could it be that a net payout in 1999 of $120.00 per acre of barley to a Quebec farmer is why he could afford to send us that load of hay that the Canadian Alliance got so excited about and we where all supposed to feel so warm and fuzzy about. Give me a break!

[rusty1]

My Rant - We really blue it when the Ontario Ag. Minister wanted to "regionalize the beef industry", we should have jumped at the opportuinity of a life time.
I'd still like someone to tell me how shooting 650,000 normally slaughtered culls would reduce the population. It's the pretty little heifers comming into the system that keep us going that would need to be stopped.

[Bruce14]

Rusty1 said "We really blue it when the Ontario Ag. Minister wanted to "regionalize the beef industry", we should have jumped at the opportuinity of a life time."

One thing western Canada does not have is enough consumers for what we produce. What we need is less restrictions into large markets not more.

I don't think Helen Johns is feeling so cocky about her gov't at the moment. With the Aylmer Meat fiasco now gaining headlines the Ontario gov't had better do the right thing and do a proper inquiry. If Butch Clare is guilty of what has been alleged, an example should be set with the stiffest penalties possible.

[cowman]

Rusty 1: Please elaborate on your thoughts about the regionalization thing...I don't quite get how that was a good idea. Probably a good idea for Ontario and Quebec farmers, maybe not so good for the eastern consumer! Pretty well a disaster for feedlot alley right now! Hey maybe we could regionalize our oil and gas money!
Now it sounds to me like Quebec has got some good ideas! Maybe we should get on the bandwagon and ask our provincial governments for the same kind of deal? Of course then the question comes up of who will pay? I suspect Ralph Klein and Ernie Eaves might balk at ponying up some more cash!