The Rural Voice, 2002-05, Page 8"Our experience
assures lower cost
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4 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
When winning means somebodg loses
Keith
Roulston is
editor and
publisher of
The Rural
Voice. He
lives hear
Blyth, ON.
Generally we get to vote for a
federal or provincial government
every four or five years, but in
between elections the real politicking
goes on as various interests battle to
see who will win government support
and whose ox will be gored.
Politics often means that I will
battle for rules and regulations that
will help me. even if they cost you.
Though people like to talk about
"win-win" solutions. usually the
needs of the two sides are such that if
one wins, the other must lose.
I remember learning that sort of
lesson a year or so ago when I
watched a television program on the
decline of the salmon fishery along
the British Columbia coast. In the
search for answers the program
showed one stream where the mouth
of the river was clogged with trash
swept downstream from areas that
had been clearcut by the logging
industry. Fish weren't able to get
upstream to spawn. Friendly
legislation for the loggers had hurt
the fishing industry.
There are many advocates of
taking an industry -wide view of
farming these days but it's easier said
than done. The recent decision by the
Farm Products Marketing Comm-
ission to let chicken processors set
the volume goals they want is a
victory for the processors over the
producers who worried about
flooding the market with surplus
chicken meat as happened a few
years ago when a similar regime was
put in place. That decision wasn't
good enough for the processors,
however, who appealed the parts they
didn't like to Brian Coburn the then
Minister of Agriculture, Food and
Rural Affairs. They particularly
wanted Coburn to drop the fixed
price for chicken, instead including
the wholesale price as a price -setting
factor. If the market was flooded by
producers meeting the requests from
the processors and the wholesale
price dropped, the producers' price
would drop but the processors, who
created the surplus, would gain.
Thankfully Coburn said no.
Often it's small producers who are
pitted against Targe producers in a
win/lose battle. Most small producers
want the strength of bargaining as a
group, whether it be for hogs or
wheat. Many large producers are sure
they can do a better job of marketing
for themselves and want the restrict-
ions of agency marketing removed.
For them to get what they want, th'e
little guys can't get what they want.
For a long time the will of the
majority held sway but these days
governments often are concerned
with a supply-side theory that sees
farm products as a feedstock for
manufacturing and processing. Often
the majority of small producers will
be overlooked for the benefit of the
large producers and the processors.
In western Canada at least,
conventional farmers' desire to grow
genetically -altered canola has meant
the growing of organic canola has
been pretty -well wiped out. Growers
admit it's virtually impossible to
meet organic purity standards
because of the mobility of canola
pollen.
Now the battle is on over wheat.
On a recent television interview a
Monsanto spokesperson admitted
there would be near unanimous
opposition to the introduction of
genetically altered wheat across the
prairies right now because growers
and marketers are worried about
international markets being lost. Yet
the federal government is financially
backing the company in its research.
And under NAFTA, mightn't the
government be open to a huge lawsuit
if it prevents the company from
selling its product?
Whose rights will prevail in this
one, the right of the company to sell
its product or the rights of the hard-
hit producers whQ worry about losing
their markets'? As the marketplace
stands now, they can't both win.0