The Rural Voice, 1987-10, Page 16COMPLETE LINE OF
ANIMAL FEED
— Hog
— Veal
— Dairy
treleaven'
z
— Beef
— Poultry
— Pet
wed. to wed.
111
treleaven's
feed mill ltd.
box 182, lucknow, ont. NOG 2H0
519.528.3000
1.800.285.3008
14 THE RURAL VOICE
SUBSIDIES: ON INCOME
OR ON COMMODITIES?
We have all heard about the Eur-
opeans imposing dairy quotas on their
farmers. We have also heard that this
didn't work too well because the over -
quota price was still attractive enough
to induce dairymen to increase pro-
duction. Since this last news, silence.
But the European Economic
Community didn't sit still. It quietly
dropped the over -quota price and cut
quota by six per cent, despite the
protests of farmers. And, lo and
behold, production is dropping and so
are storage stocks. Now, farmers are
being compensated for loss of income.
The U.S. reduction program,
which paid farmers to leave dairying,
is a success, despite early predictions
that it would fail because there was
nothing to stop other farmers from
taking up the slack. It is reported that
40,000 American farmers were bought
out, causing a production drop of 8.5
per cent, which was partially off -set
by other dairy farmers, who increased
production despite a drop in support
prices of 15 per cent. This left a total
reduction of some three per cent.
The Economist reports that while
milk production in Canada and Aus-
tralia has increased by three and two
per cent, it has dropped from two to
five per cent in the U.S., Britain,
France, Japan, and West Germany,
and by a whopping 14 per cent in New
Zealand, where there are no agri-
cultural subsidies.
Still we are not out of the woods
— butter stocks are so big that world
prices have never been lower. Part of
the cause of the low price is an in-
crease in dairy production in the
Soviet Union. This leaves a smaller
dumping ground for the EEC's surplus
products.
One can't help but wonder if the
increase in Soviet production is a
result of the fresh breeze blowing
through the USSR and fanned by
Mikhail Gorbachev. If it is, we are
on the brink of losing more markets.
Of particular interest to Canadian
agriculture in this connection is the
USSR's grain production.
At the same time, world consump-
tion per capita is dropping because of
the cholesterol scare and the general
fear of animal fats. In fact, the Proctor
and Gamble company has developed a
product called sucrose polyester
(SPE). This product looks and tastes
like fat but is free of calories — or,
rather, its calories are not absorbed by
the body. This leaves the good taste
of fat without the weight gain caused
by animal fats and vegetable oils.
This is not all. The stuff actually
picks up cholesterol produced by the
human body and carries it away as
waste. In particular, the harmful low-
density lipoprotein, which causes
atherosclerosis, is reduced by as much
as 20 per cent.
SPE is already used in Japan to
replace fats in baked goods and
chocolates. It is expected that Proctor
and Gamble will apply to the U.S.
Federal Drug Administration for the
use of SPE in weight and cholesterol
reduction drugs and in food additives.
The approval process takes an average
of eight years, and the result may be a
blow to dairymen everywhere.
In sum, the limited success of the
Europeans in reducing stocks of dairy
products should make our farm
organizations think again. Western
farmers are already vehemently
protesting proposals to support farm
families rather than farm products.
They equate the minimum income
ideas with "welfare." But what is the
difference between the two types of
subsidies? A matter of semantics.
If minimum income subsidies are
welfare, so are production subsidies.
In one respect the protesters are
correct. Production subsidies benefit
the large farms most, and they need it
least. They, most likely, would not
often be eligible for minimum income
support.0
ADRIAN VOS, FROM HURON COUNTY,
HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THE RURAL
VOICE SINCE ITS INCEPTION IN 1975.