Barton Report

[grassfarmer]

I don't know if I missed this being discussed on here or if it was never raised? From the Government Council on Economic Growth, 2nd report issued in 2017.
Saw it summarized yesterday as:

"Focus on massive increase in Ag exports
*calls for 33% increase in Ag exports in just 7 years.
*advocates increasing scale, reducing regulations and automating production.
*Recommends the transformation of the agri-food sector be led by corporate executives, not farmers and other citizens.

Perhaps this gives some context to the participants in Seed tax "consultations" among other things?

Here is some of the info, don't know if there is more as it's existence was news to me until yesterday.

http://www.budget.gc.ca/aceg-ccce/pdf/key-sectors-secteurs-cles-eng.pdf http://https://www.budget.gc.ca/aceg-ccce/pdf/key-sectors-secteurs-cles-eng.pdf

[jimmy]

I don't know if I missed this being discussed on here or if it was never raised? From the Government Council on Economic Growth, 2nd report issued in 2017.
Saw it summarized yesterday as:

"Focus on massive increase in Ag exports
*calls for 33% increase in Ag exports in just 7 years.
*advocates increasing scale, reducing regulations and automating production.
*Recommends the transformation of the agri-food sector be led by corporate executives, not farmers and other citizens.

Perhaps this gives some context to the participants in Seed tax "consultations" among other things?

Here is some of the info, don't know if there is more as it's existence was news to me until yesterday.

http://www.budget.gc.ca/aceg-ccce/pdf/key-sectors-secteurs-cles-eng.pdf http://https://www.budget.gc.ca/aceg-ccce/pdf/key-sectors-secteurs-cles-eng.pdf

This can’t be right there is nothing about gender in it.

[littledoggie]

Interesting. One of the things that is always said about Conservative governments is that they are always about big business. But the liberals are no different. Worse in some ways. Under an NDP government we quickly become 'kulaks'.

[grassfarmer]

Interesting. One of the things that is always said about Conservative governments is that they are always about big business. But the liberals are no different. Worse in some ways. Under an NDP government we quickly become 'kulaks'.

Kulak - definition - "In Russian and Soviet history, a wealthy or prosperous peasant, generally characterized as one who owned a relatively large farm and several head of cattle and horses and who was financially capable of employing hired labour and leasing land."

Is that better or worse than becoming serfs under the status quo Corporate welfare systems supported by the Liberals and Conservatives?

[littledoggie]

Kulak - definition - "In Russian and Soviet history, a wealthy or prosperous peasant, generally characterized as one who owned a relatively large farm and several head of cattle and horses and who was financially capable of employing hired labour and leasing land."

Is that better or worse than becoming serfs under the status quo Corporate welfare systems supported by the Liberals and Conservatives?

The answer to your question is neither.

I would like to expand on your definition of "kulak". As early as 1919 the word "kulak" had already acquired a broader meaning, well beyond "rich peasant". Anyone who had extra stores of grain - and anyone who opposed Soviet power - could be damned by it. By 1929 anyone who expressed discontent was a kulak. Peasant families that had never used hired labor were put down as kulaks. A household that had two cows, a cow and a calf or a pair of horses was considered kulak. The notion of a "wealthy" peasant might also be one with 2 pigs instead of one. A "wealthy" peasant might also be one who inspired dislike or envy among his neighbors. (Source - "Red Famine - Stalin's War on Ukraine" by Anne Applebaum)

"....because they were opposed to collectivization, they were branded by the Soviet regime "enemies of the people" and presented throughout the 1920s in government propaganda as wealthy land-grabbing exploiters of their fellow villagers. In lieu of such inflammatory but vague rhetoric, the Soviets attempted to provide a concrete definition of who qualified as a kulak. Accordingly, a decree in May 1929 defined a kulak as someone who had a minimum income of.....and who used hired laborers and owned any kind of motorized farm machinery. ............With respect to the so-called wealth of the kulaks, it should be kept in mind that the average income of an urban worker was the same as or greater than the kulak minimum and included social security benefits not available to rural agriculturalists. Moreover, most of the farmsteads that used hired labor were headed by war invalids or widows, not well-to-do peasant entrepreneurs. In short, the term kulak and the even vaguer category of kulak henchmen had less to do with actual wealth than with the need of the Soviet authorities to have an all-purpose term with which to brand whomever they considered their enemy in the countryside" (Source - "A History of Ukraine - The Land and Its People" by Paul Robert Magocsi)

[grassfarmer]

Is that better or worse than becoming serfs under the status quo Corporate welfare systems supported by the Liberals and Conservatives?

The answer to your question is neither.

I agree. Both are poor choices. What do we do about it?

[littledoggie]

Ah, the age old question. Property rights? Anti-combine legislation and enforcement? Lobbying changes? Accountability laws for politicians and top-level bureaucrats? An end to vertical integration?

All impossible. I'm sure, as the world moves towards being a 'company town'.