Subsidies For Agriculture

[Muttley]

This is being written as a personal opinion for you to reflect upon or comment.
I would like nothing more than not to have to receive funds from our governments to keep farming. I am proud of the product I produce and the way in which I do it. The problem is we in agriculture be it grain, livestock, or an other form are one of the few professions that are not able to charge for our product as the cost of producing it increases.
If you own a business and your expenses increase you pass it on to the consumer. The govt's regularly increase our costs for utilities saying they are not making enough money.
Many company's increase their profits by increasing the price, the reason being we need it, they have it, pay or go with out.
I do not wish to have to have a subsidy payed to me to keep farming. But to do this I must charge more for my product to meet the cost of producing it and to have a profit like any other business. Unless the consumers of this country are prepared to pay more, the government must subsidies agriculture. The people of this country must become aware that food does not come from the grocery store it comes from the farmer.
The politicians must remember that to lose farmers hurts more than just rural towns, there is many businesses in cities across Canada that make their living from us.
I would like everyone to sit back and think about all the little shoe stores, auto dealers, cafe's, department stores, etc. that would not be there if it were not for farmers and agriculture. It is high time the people that think they are not effected by us wake up and learn that we help to keep them in business, support us because we support you. Give a farmer money and we will get the economy growing.
Remember for every person that leaves the farm to work they take a job away from somebody else, maybe people will wake up when it's their's.
The gov't must subsidies the farmer or up our prices and subsidies the end user. No matter how you figure it every year more people leave the farm and this must stop.

[cowman]

It has never been in the governments interest to have a fair price for food. It is in their interest to keep the food producers(peasants) at a very subsistence level so they will keep producing it cheaply. In the mean time the"value adders" can get rich packaging and selling the food to the public.
Now there is a section of Agriculture that does set its prices....the supply management sector. You don't see too many broke dairy farmers. Why couldn't all farm commodities in Canada be handled this way? Well we wouldn't be exporting anymore. It would mean raising a lot less hogs and cattle and even grain but would that be so bad? Do we really need mega pig barns, feedlot alley, and road to road fields? Then we could let the tree huggers have all the little owls and wolves they wanted!
How come is it the government can put a tax of 400% on tobbacco and probably about the same on beer or whisky? How much money does the farmer get from one bottle of beer? And not one red cent of these taxes goes back to the farmer? What would happen if the government put a paltry 5% tax on food and gave it back to support the farmers?
To have any real solution we need people in government with vision...instead we get a clown like Vanclief!!! He is the ultimate joke on farmers!

[Muttley]

Your right on taxing the people that use the product. And milk is an excellant example of pay or drink something else. I don't wish for my bread, meat, etc. to go higher in price but the fact is it must in order for us to survive.
I am so tired of people telling me if I'm not making any money to quit and do something else. Do these people not realize that the job I'm taking could be their's.
The days of average size farming is starting to go by the way. Small farmers are allready gone unless they work off farm. Our towns are dwindling and the way of life is changing.
The gov't must support us in some way. Get the price of the product up or get the price of the imputs down.

[countryguy]

I think the solution to our problems is a simple one.We need to cut our production expenses and become less reliant on the big corporations.We then need to get our products to the consumer without going through the middle men that rob our profits from us.I honestly don't know if the gov't should have any part of our destiny.If you take a look at what the New Zealand gov't did to its farmers you will see that their farmers have greatly benefited from it.I have a vision for agriculture in Canada that ALL sectors can be part of,while being very profitable should everyone choose to cooperate.

Speaking of people not knowing how important agriculture is to the country I was listening to a polititian from Toronto a few months back.His personal mission was to inform Torontonians about the importance of agriculture in Canada to them.Anyway this guy stated that in Toronto 7 out of 10 jobs are directly or indirectly related to agriculture.This was a shocker to me,never mind them!!

[jensco]

That seems high for Toronto. I heard a speaker today state that 1 in 10 jobs are dependent on agriculture in Manitoba. MB has a greater ag base than ON. However, TO could be higher because of the population. Regardless, Torontonians need the education and so do many more Canadians.

On the political topic,I think farmers would do better on their own without government involvement - especially with Vanclief there!!! Anyone who promotes producers to leave "if they can't make a go like I did" should find a different portfolio. The negative approach will not find any solutions.
He is definitely not a "champion" of agriculture.

[cakadu]

The New Zealand situation saw about 7% of the farmers leave farming after the subsidies were eliminated. It makes me wonder how many of them were close to going out of the farming business prior to the cuts being made. What it did was to force them to take a look at what they could become more competitive at producing and they are now doing a fairly good job in a number of areas. They are the low cost producer of milk and they do it without the supply management system to help them. They export a huge amount of lamb, goat meat, fruit - primarily kiwis among other products. They started to go out there and find out what other countries wanted and they set about bringing it to them.

To me, what is more important than the subsidies, is starting to grow crops that are being sought after out there rather than growing what is tried and true. Agriculture is changing, just like everything else and oftentimes at a very rapid pace. Times are changing and we in agriculture need to adapt to these changes. More and more the focus is coming on value-added products and maybe in time we will see subsidies being tied to whether or not you grow crops that don't fall into the commodity category. Nobody said it was going to be easy to make these changes, but the harder we fight them, the more - I am sad to say - we see people leaving the farm, with nobody coming in to take their place.

[dales]

You people are right we need to get more for our product. I do not want the government helping me out because the more they help the more they wade into the bussiness and mess it up because they don't know what they are doing. Stats-Canada says that we as canadians spend approx. 6% of our income on food that is the second lowest in the world. Another problem we have in western canada is that we send the raw product out of this area and bring back in the refined product we need to develop processing plants here even if they were co-op owned like the pools used to be when the big companies look and see where there profits were going they would not take long in building there own herewhich would help the economy and help withshipping cost for our grain and other products. I don't know how much this would help but I think it would be a good start now I just need someone to put up the money to get it started back to square one.

[cowman]

New Zealand isn't necessarily such a great success story. A good part of the reason they are so able to compete is that their currency is in the tank(sort of like Canada?). It is so bad that they can't afford to replace machinery, vehicles, manufactured goods as they produce almost none of these(more Canada!). Most cars sold there are used vehicles from Japan as new ones are too expensive with their poor currency. A huge part of the agriculture sector has been turned over to deer, as there is a great export demand. If a product has no export value then they don't grow it because their own money is worthless. The exact same thing happens in Argentina...and we all know where that led to?
When I advocate supply management I don't say the government should run it! In reality most businesses have supply management with no government involvement other than buying the right politicians to keep imports out! Take a look at the car industry...Do they lower prices when they have a glut...or allow more imports in? No they don't and they are able to tack on 7% increases just about every year. Think about it...What did a car cost you 20 years ago? What did a bushel of barley cost then? Or a pound of beef? Then compare all of the above to today...I think you will see that they have the right answer.

[jensco]

Changes in agriculture will be tough for sure. Yes, we will lose some producers. The government offers limited help to small business entrepreneurs but the "Start-Up" program for young farmers is even more limited. I agree that incentives need to be tied to things that are innovative whether it is called "value-added" or something else. Larger tax rebates in the early years may help out so more money could be invested in the operation. Right now the reductions are too small when it comes to the costs of investing in equipment. It can be done, but it takes much longer to be producing on anything but a small scale or to a "niche" market.

This is compounded when the young are trying to start an operation under the weight of school loans. By the time the loans are paid off, they are too old to qualify for the "Start-up" program. Just another hurdle, but this will discourage many from agriculture. It is much easier to go for the steady pay check, get rid of the loan debt, and then look at settling down.

Just more to contemplate!

[cakadu]

Cowman, I'm sure that there are things that did not go well in New Zealand, particularly for that 7%, but it was in no way the catastrophe that it was first thought it was going to be.

The point is that it changed their thinking quite radically and you are quite right - if they can't make money at it, they just don't do it and they are tending to produce and supply what is being demanded by end-users of the various products. That is what has to be understood and accepted here in the country and this province.

I agree with your comments in the "Alberta Advantage" topic that some of the older producers are just wanting to hang in until such time as they are finally ready to move to town or whatever they choose to do. I can't help but think then that it begs the question that if that is their choice - i.e. to grow what is easiest and they are the most knowledgeable about, which in consequence nets them the least, then how can they expect subsidies to help them through the rough patches? It is a choice they are making. Change is happening all around us and we can choose to continue to fight it or we can choose to do and learn what we can about it.
Which is easiest and which is best?

[dalek]

Part of the reason New Zealand wasn't a complete disaster is that EVERYBODY took a cut, not just agriculture. Everybody was in the same boat so standards of living didn't change that much. You think your average North American is willing to accept that?

[cowman]

Linda: New Zealand had no choice. Their completely incompetent socialist governments had basically bankrupted them. Shades of Canada in the future? And dalek you are right about everyone taking the hit and their standard of living is not what it was before the crash.
The people needing subsidies in this country are not the older established producer. They can leave the industry whenever they choose and be very well off. So who takes over then? Actually who wants to?
It is all very well to talk about growing what will sell but in reality, for a large part of the prairies, wheat and other cereals are about all that will make it. You can't grow very many cantalopes at Hanna or Maple Creek! A large portion should never have been broken up in the first place. So basically it's cows and wheat. We tried the goofy ideas like buffalo and elk and look what happened. And have you ever noticed how all the so called experts are just ripping the people who went into those industries? They were the same people who were all gung-ho for it a few years ago! I've always believed if the"experts" are pushing something, do the exact opposite! It will make you money every time! Right now they are all pushing organic and strange little crops . I'd say it's about time to start planting wheat!

[dalek]

Cowman:
Yeah that didn't come out quite right. Meant that standard of living didn't change that much compared to others in the same area who had to deal with cuts as well.

[cakadu]

Cowman, I'm not advocating going to cantelopes or things that don't stand a prayer of growing here. I am referring to looking at peas, for example. With the government wanting to increase pork production to 12 million hogs, they need to be fed with something. Peas are good pork and poultry feed. What is preventing growing more peas? How come we have to send out peas out of the province to get them split?

What would it take to have a pea splitter here? What about starting discussions with some processor about establishing something here instead of having to pay to ship them out and then ship the split peas back here.

I realize that the beef and barley industry is a huge draw for growing cereals, but we need to start looking in other areas.

Some of the responsiblity for planting decisions has to fall back on the shoulders of the producer. I am trying to understand why it is that if producer "x" decides to grow durham for the 5th straight year and the price doesn't look like it is going to go up for the foreseeable future, then why would that producer go ahead and plant duham again this year and then ask for subsidy help on top of that?

Part of this is assuming risk and if you're risk averse and don't want to try to grow new things, then don't you have to accept the consequences of that decision as well?

Please help me understand!

[cowman]

Linda: In my area there are quite a few peas grown too. The general consensus would be they are tricky to grow, have a fairly limited market, weeds can be a problem, and in reality canola offers a more stable return in a barley rotation.Peas can be good but they are not a real dryland crop as I'm sure many found out this year. In the drier areas wheat is the preferred crop because it can handle drought(within reason...not this year). I don't have all the answers and I suspect no one does. The real problem is we just produce too much food. And I don't know how you solve that problem.