The Rural Voice, 1978-07, Page 3Opinion
[By Keith Roulston]
Well, the price of beef has been up for
about two months now and already the
damour has started.
I'm not surprised, of course, and neither
I'm sure are the majority of Canadian
farmers. We all knew that it was coming.
I have little respect for the consumer
movement in Canada anymore. It's sad,
because the consumer movement can do so
much good, but in Canada the movement
has lost all its credibility, for me at least,
through its endless yammerings about food
prices over the years. The latest calls for
action against the price of beef such as
increasing imports are just the latest in a
Tong, inglorious record for the consumers
association when it comes to food.
Mountains out of Molehills
It is the consumer movement, after all,
that has been so strongly against marketing
boards for farmers, one of the few
defences, imperfect as they are, that
farmers have in the jungle of modern
business. Consumer activist spokespersons
such as Beryl Plumptre, Barbara Shand or
whoever else is president of the association
at the time, have argued that marketing
boards artificially inflate the price of food
and support inefficient producers.
They've made mountains out of mole-
hills whenever something went wrong in a
marketing board such as the rotten egg
mess a couple of years ago, and use these
as arguments that the whole concept of the
marketing board is wrong. They've scoffed
at arguments from farmers that marketing
boards don't really make that much
difference in food prices, that what they do
most is even out the peaks and lows by
stabilizing prices at a rate both farmer and
consumer can live with.
One of the few areas where the
consumer groups have not had a chance to
scream has been in beef. Beef producers
have fought vehemently against a
marketing board in their business
preferring to stick it out in the bad times
and recoup during the good. The past four
years have been those bad times, so bad
that many farmers went broke, or switched
to some other kind of farming instead of
beef production. The result is a shortage of
beef' and the prices have soared.
Now maybe I missed it, but 1 don't recall
reading one word, hearing one speech from
aconsumer spokesperson calling for action
to help the beef farmers through their hard
years. Consumer groups just went along
their merry way eating cheap beef (though
even then I'll bet they grumbled about the
cost) and never thinking why the beef was
cheap or that it had to end.
Now, when the good times the beef men
patiently waited for have finally arrived,
the consumer groups are calling for the
government to take action to get the prices
down again.
Stupid or dishonest
Leaders of the consumer movement are
either stupid, or downright dishonest and
either way, I can't have the least respect
from them. They could be stupid, I
Jo -Ann Todd, St. Helen's sel-
ling produce at the Saturday
morning Lucknow Farmers'
Market. The market, which
opened June 10, runs till October
29. [Sentinel Photo]
suppose, not realizing how hypocritcal they
are, on one hand being outraged by
marketing boards but on the other not
being willing to live with both the ups and
the downs of the open market system. They
could be that ignorant of the farm situation
that they continue to make such idiotic
demands. If so, they are too stupid for the
elevated positions they hold. They do not
deserve the national attention they get
when they get up and make one of their
speeches.
The other alternative is that they are
dishonest, that they know what is really
going on in agriculture and they ignore it
because the truth would not sit well with
the rank and file membership of the group.
In such case they should be turfed out for
dishonesty just as dishonest politicians
should be turfed out.
No free lunch
Beyond the leadership, however, is the
ignorance of consumers in general who still
apparently believe that there is a free
lunch. A couple of years ago people were
going around with the idea that we could
all demand more money whether in wages
or profits, without somehow having to pay
the price for it. Our current economic
situation have shown that we had " pay
the price for that greed, that suuuenly
nobody else in the world can afford to buy
the goods we produce because they are too
expensive.
Today on the other end of the scale we
have people thinking that they can forever
get food at below the cost of production.
Because farmers lost money for four years
and the price of beef remained low,
consumers expect it ever to be thus. They
fail to see that if farmers are losing money
they aren't going to produce and if they
don't produce there is a food shortage that
will inevitably bring higher prices. You
can't force farmers to be slaves, to produce
food forever at below what it costs them to
buy and feed those animals.
It is astounding that this self-evident fact
hasn't become known 'to the average
Canadian consumer or is it just that she
doesn't really want to know.
the rural
Voice
Published monthly by Squire Publishing House, R.R. 3, Blyth,
Ontario. NOM 1 HO. Telephone 523-9636. Subscription rates: Canada,
$2.00; Outside Canada, $3.00; Single copy, 25c. Co -Publishers, Keith
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atives, Stephen Norton and Mrs. Mary Walden. Authorized as second
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THE RURAL VOICE/JULY 1978 PG. 3