The Rural Voice, 1986-02, Page 571
KEITH ROULSTON
Always on
the defensive
All the talk about the pros and
cons of free trade has most Cana-
dians bewildered and not knowing
what it all means. For farmers it
means one thing though, that the
very instruments farmers have
come up with to keep them in
business, are under attack again.
Farmers who belong to com-
modity groups that don't have
marketing controls must wonder if
there's any sense trying to get
agreement for more orderly
marketing if the whole thing will
be torn apart by government
negotiators trading off agriculture
for industry again (like they have
so many other times). Meanwhile,
those groups, such as the feather
industry and the dairy industry
(who already have marketing
boards), are likely to be so busy
defending themselves they will,
once again, be diverted from need-
ed reforms.
If your neighbour is criticizing
your kids all the time, you're likely
to stand up for them and ignore
their faults even if you know they
have plenty. There are plenty of
things wrong with our current
marketing boards but they have
been under attack so much of the
time that farmers belonging to
them, haven't had the time to ex-
amine the faults and try to remedy
them.
Chief among the faults is the
ever -escalating cost of quota in
controlled market items that is do-
ing just the opposite to what it was
intended to do. Quota was sup-
posed to keep the family farm in
business and it has helped. But as
current producers get older, we see
more and more that the high price
of quota is only postponing a pro-
blem. What young farmer can
hope to buy quota, cows,
buildings, land, and machinery
these days and turn a profit in
dairy?
On the other side of the coin,
often, the most valuable asset an
existing farmer has is his quota. If
all else fails, he can sell his quota,
get a fair chunk of cash and either
go into some other kind of farming
(thereby creating surplus produc-
tion there) or get out of the
business altogether. When they
sell, the chances are the only buyer
they can find is an operator getting
larger reinvesting profits, and thus
centralizing the industry more and
diminishing the number of family
farms.
Farmers who want to see the
future, can look at the other end of
the quota business in dairy. When
the milk marketing board was
formed, there were little cheese
factories and dairies all over our
area. Many were immediately
caught in a quota squeeze that saw
them having to buy more quota
just to get the same amount of
milk they had previously been get-
ting.
Soon, many of the operators
realized that the most valuable
thing they had was their quota and
they began selling it to big, often
multi -national companies. Today,
all those little dairies and most of
those little cheese factories and
creameries are gone and with them
the jobs in our communities,
lessening the benefit of agriculture
to our own economies.
Unless something isn't done
about high quota values, the same
kind of drastic result in controlled
commodity sectors is inevitable.
The marketing boards should be
looking at solutions that will phase
out open bidding on quota and put
it back in the hands of the
marketing board itself to be loaned
out for the lifetime of the farmer.
It must be a solution that doesn't
penalize those who have a big in-
vestment in quota they've already
bought.
It's a big problem and it must be
tackled but if farmers are always
preoccupied in defending
themselves, they can't get on with
finding the solution. What farmers
need right now is a little peace.C7
Keith Roulston is the originator
and former publisher of The
Rural Voice.
ATTENTION
Commercial Pork Producers:
In March of 1984. we began the purchase o1
purebred Landrace gilts from Tony Vandendool.
Clinton and purebred York boars from Bodmin
Ltd.. Brussels. both of which are rated
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health status is rated "Excellent" under the
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F-1 Landracelvork gilts are available Enquiries
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FAIR FAMILY FARM
R.R. 4, Wingham — 519.357.2096
hisex 11#
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519-395-2992
Tile Drainage
FEBRUARY 1986 55