The Rural Voice, 1982-04, Page 27INN VOICE OFA FARMER
Notes of aggravation
by Adrian Vos
When defenders of the Ontario government's agricultural
budget discuss the Tile Drainage Loan program, they always
give the impression that the government. in their innate
goodness, give some 530 million annually to hard-pressed
farmers so the latter's land will be worth
more money.
This is simply not true. It is a LOAN
program and the money returns to the
treasury to be lent again. There is some
subsidy in the low interest part of the
program, which, I was told, amounts to about
57 million annually, a quarter of the total ,...'
amount. _
When the milk committee presented their
brief to the Huron federation's MP Dinner.
they claimed that for the last four years the
supply had been in balance with demand.
That is a moot point. By fixing prices, the balance is
automatically destroyed because price is the pivot of the scale.
Without price fixing, supply would always be in balance of
demand. because demand increases when price decreases.
Farmers are just as great in defending their position as the
oil companies and the doctors. So did, at the same meeting, the
representative of the egg producers claim that supply
management was responsible for a decease in the relative price
of eggs. That is, of course, false. If the price would be higher
without supply management the whole hassle about quotas
would be unnecessary. The question is, how much would the
price have dropped without quotas.
Defenders of quota are on much stronger ground when they
advance the other argument, that there wouldn't be an egg or
broiler industry without the protection a supply management
system gives. They really don't need far-fetched, hard -to -
defend arguments.
Why did the representative have to claim that under supply
management subsidies are not necessary, when the dairy
industry gets 5300 million annually? And by fixing prices, isn't
that also a subsidy paid for by the user of eggs?
They'd be better off to stick to simple facts. That's good
enough for most of us
It was a sad moment when Bob Eaton told the farm
commodity people at that Huron meeting that he would
support legislation against foreign absentee ownership, if it
could be shown that it is a cause for higher farm prices.
Preservation of our heritage doesn't seem to mean anything
anymore
His opinion was supported by reeve Simon Hallahan of East
Wawanosh township, who said he couldn't care less who
owned the land, as long as he can rent if from them at six per
cent of its value.
It appears our people have been away too long from their old
countries, and have forgotten what it is to be a tenant farmer.
Farmer/writer Adrian Vos likes to be provocative, "to make
people think... they don't have to agree". He welcomes
comment and suggested column topics from readers.
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THE RURAL VOICE/APRIL 1982 PG. 25