Farmers images!

[cowman]

I am always amazed by the ignorance shown by some people when it comes to agriculture. How many times have you heard people complain about rich farmers whining for more government money? Or complaining about how all the farmers have new pickups?
I don't think they get it. If a farmer has assets of millions of dollars does that mean he should get a below par return on his investment(or maybe no return or maybe negative returns?). And when in reality it is mostly the federal government who has created this situation, shouldn't they pay? Who should pay for the cheap food policy? Who has it benefitted? Why should the primary producer bare the brunt of the cost?
And why shouldn't a farmer be able to drive a new truck or live in a nice home? Should he be banned from living a decent life because he collects a small pittance from the government who ****d him in the first place? The publics preception is that farmers are on the public tit big time when in fact the money they recieve from govt. is a joke!
If most people had any kind of clue about the sweetheart deals the oil industry gets they would be shocked!!! But you don't hear anyone complaining about the "excesses" in the oil patch!
Not too much whining about new trucks there!!!

[nakodo]

What would be this "cheap food policy" you mention?, I snooped around on the hill and can find no records of any policy being put together, nor any in Edm.

Seems the government did not create nor execute a policy in this regard. They did put in place a number of support payments to Cdn farmers which in turn means all Canadians have to pay higher taxers but they did not tax the food to recapture this, they took it from general revenue so it was not a "make food more expensive plan".

I suspect this is the cheap food policy you are describing, or the mechanism tax payers can pay for the support programs to farmers but that it is not reflected in the price of the food but hidden in a tax return.

Last time I looked the ag budget for the province of Alberta was about 440 million $ of which only 100 million was for buildings, staff and programs the rest for farm related payments.

In the EU and in the USA they also have "cheap food policies" where they hide the cost of the ag subsidies from their consumers too.

So who has an "expensive food policy"?

Maybe we had best let the market work out what food costs rather than ask the 96 % of non-farming VOTING households if they mind a policy to make food more expensive??? to support the 4 % of farming households.

[cowman]

Here is a very clear example of this unwritten policy!
In the early 80's there was a short term shortage of cow beef. The price of cull cows went up to over 50 cents. The cattlemen were happy the delis in Toronto and Montreal were not! So in came the Irish beef. We were told we must let the market decide and we must compete! Now we knew something was wrong with this picture so the CCA took it to court. Guess what? Yes that Irish beef was cheaper but they were getting 76 cents in a subsidy! Then the Canadian government decided this wasn't fair and stopped the importations, but it was too late...they had ruined the market.Now were they really ignorant about this subsidy to Irish beef? Or was it about cheap sandwiches for the Bay Street crowd?
You talk about the massive 340 million in farm subsidies. I suspect a lot of this so called "subsidy" is the farm fuel tax rebate and that is NOT a subsidy! It is NOT collecting the road tax on farm fuel. Is that unfair?
We should never be too holier than though sort of thing, as we are all on the government tit to some extent and that includes just about everyone, including I suspect, consultants!
And you like to make it sound like farmers are welfare recipients when in fact they pay lots of taxes and just think of all the taxes the many little parasites who live off them pay??? Maybe people should take a look at where their bread is buttered!