Save the farmer...

[smcgrath76]

This seems to me to be the contentious issue around farm policy that no one will talk about. Every farm group and government talks about how we need to save farmers and the new policy or program will or will not do it.
So far we have fewer farmers with every census and they keep getting older.
At what point do we need to decide how many farmers we really want in Canada, or how they are rewarded? Should we just say to heck with it and let those that survive, survive?
Do we need to keep spending tax dollars on the endangered farmer and if so what is the best way to do it so that farming becomes a self sufficient industry? I do appreciate that other industries recieve big $ from government however as farm number decline (fewer votes) i supspect government money will continue to be harder to come by anyway.

[ado089]

I hate to see a farm disappear as much as anyone, but the reality is that farming is a buisness and you either sink or swim. That being said food is needed, natural disasters occur and the benefit of spending a little bit of tax money on agriculture far out-weights the cost but there are still some farms out there that haven't kept pace with new technology and practices and are to be blunt are poor managers. Any programs that do come along seem to just provide them with enough money so that they can stick around another year to loose more money. Maybe that money would be better spent on re-education or a sell-out incentive to help younger more progresive farmers manage that land hopefuly further reducing the need for future government infusions of money. In the rest of the world if you're not good at what you do you get fired, why should farming be any different?