On the way to truly being a third world country

[dalek]

Jeez I milked for 15 years and never once managed to fool myself into believing SM wasn't a form of massive subsidization.

[ado089]

First of all let's deal with the here and now, most of those words haven't been used in 25 years. Marked fuel is for off road use, why would one pay road tax for off road fuel? Not a subsidy and offered to other industries. Cheaper plates? That's a sask thing. In Alberta when I moved from Calgary to mossleigh my insurance was cut in half on my private vehicle. As with F plates in sask it's a risk thing, you're less likely to have claims in rural areas. Not a subsidy. Agriinvest is probably but at the end of the day when I add up what I pay into anything with a growing forward logo on it compared to receipts with a the same logo there is a significant surplus of money flowing to the government.

[FarmRanger]

grassfarmer
I never claimed we weren't subsidized, but I'd gladly give up that miniscule in comparison amount to eliminate all the tariffs and barriers for the crops I grow. Like others have said here before me, some of those "subsidies" aren't really subsidies at all, merely rebates on upfront surtaxes.

When I can buy clear diesel in the US for less than marked fuel here, I consider our higher price to be the opposite of a subsidy. I'd give up the crop insurance "subsidy" if it meant all tariffs and barriers were removed on wheat, peas and canola in our export markets. Unfortunately our trading partners roll their eyes at us when we suggest any such barrier elimination when we guard SM5 like a heroin addict protecting his stash.

[ajl]

Farmers are hardly in a position to criticize others for taking a subsidy. Most of them are first in line. My subsidies=good, your subsidies=bad. I do agree that with Ado about SK crop insurance is a tax on new entrants in the province. The new entrants get to subsidize the good old boys down the road. When land was cheap it worked OK. Getting rid of crop insurance would be fine with me as the way it operates now it does more harm than good.

[pgluca]

FarmRanger you are right we are all subsidized and you can argue which are the most onerous. My guess would be supply management. ALL SUBSIDIES should go, they soon get monetized into land prices or other overhead (quotas) and in the end do nothing but distort the marketplace. And offer no real benefit to the recipients. We are in an uneven playing field internationally but we could still compete without subsidies because for example land and inputs would of necessity be cheaper.

[grassfarmer]

pgluca,
I too would like to see an environment free of subsidies, as you say they get monetized into land prices etc. You say they offer no real benefit to the recipients - but who are the intended recipients? is it as simple as supporting the producer, is it a subsidy to support the whole rural community or as some say on here is the recipient meant to be the consumer through a "cheap food policy?"

We are in an uneven playing field internationally and realistically that is unlikely to change significantly. If we decided to "go it alone" as New Zealand did and move to a subsidy free environment there would still be agriculture here but it would be significantly different. Following the NZ example farmers would need to become more market orientated, fertilizer and chemical usage would drop dramatically (maybe by half as you couldn't afford it). My conclusion would be that for grain production you'd be looking at a lot more organic type model - low yield, low input but supplying growing market demand. Land prices would drop at least initially. Unlike NZ we have more adverse growing and climatic conditions so I'd expect the change to be tougher here than it was there. I don't think continuing a high input model using the latest technology and inputs and hoping to still compete with global commodity prices would be profitable.
It's a road we could go down but we'd have to be aware of the potential consequences.