The Rural Voice, 1990-03, Page 14111
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10 THE RURAL VOICE
THE QUESTION OF
POLITICAL CLIMATES
Some Canadian farmers are fond
of stating that we cannot compete with
Americans. They get low wages down
south; they get large subsidies; they
have a more favourable climate.
In a January issue of Macleans
magazine, Diane Francis interviews
entrepreneur Aaron Fish. He has one
factory in Montreal and one in North
Carolina. He told her that wage costs
end up roughly equal because U.S.
medical and liability insurance pre-
miums are sky high.
Production costs, including wages,
are the same in both places, even
though North Carolina has the lowest
labour rates in the U.S., Fish said.
"The Canadian work -force is su-
perior to its American counterpart...
smarter, more educated, and healthier
in body and spirit, factors which more
than make up for the slight difference
in pay scales."
But what about the "favourable
climate" in the U.S. southeast? I
doubt if their building costs are lower.
They must insulate against heat, as we
do against cold. Our heating costs
compare with their cooling costs in
summer and their higher livestock
mortality rates from heat exhaustion.
Their feed costs are higher because
much of it has to be transported in
from the plain states.
Yet egg prices in North Carolina
are 50 per cent cheaper. There is a
reason for this price difference, but it
is not wages or climate.
If subsidies are the problem, we
can request countervailing tariffs, as
the dairy industry may still do. How
to do so we can learn from the Amer-
icans themselves, who are masters in
this ploy.
If I am wrong and climate does
play a role, we can ask our GATT
negotiators to dicker for a tariff or a
subsidy commensurate with the dis-
advantage. This has been proposed
before and not rejected out of hand.
DANCING TO THE
POLITICAL TUNE
The 1990 Ontario budget cuts the
Land Stewardship Program to $12
million from $15 million. In contrast,
the Ontario Teachers' Federation
pension fund is fattened with $100
million to make it actuarially sound.
While the world is getting desper-
ate about the pollution of the planet,
Peterson and Nixon are merrily danc-
ing to the tune of politics. One of the
main sources of water pollution in the
Great Lakes is erosion — a farmer
often has the choice of mining his land
or going bankrupt. Government assis-
tance for land stewardship should be
increased, not diminished, or we will
all go bankrupt.
As Bob Bedggood of the Mid-
dlesex Federation of Agriculture said
at a water quality meeting in Seaforth
recently, all of society benefits from
good farm stewardship, and society
(government) must help to defray the
cost.
Recent statistics show that pesti-
cide use has increased by 800 per cent
while crop damage by pests has in-
creased by 3 per cent. How long can
we go on applying more chemicals
just to delay the time when their
excessive use must stop anyway?
Fortunately, farmers are listening.
They are, by and large, responsible
citizens, and alternative farming is
practised more than ever before. But
farmers cannot do it alone.
Are you listening, Pollution Probe
and Greenpeace and similar activists?
Doesn't it make more sense to spend
your money and efforts to support
farmers so they can fight erosion and
limit chemical use rather than to use
your resources to fight against non-
polluting nuclear power generation?0
Adrian Vos, from Huron County, has
contributed to The Rural Voice since
its inception in 1975.