The Rural Voice, 1987-11, Page 22time, he says, if he wishes to
supplement his income by teaching, he
should have the option to do so while
retaining the status of farmer. "I see it
as irrelevant, frankly, the fact that I
have an off -farm job ... I put out as
much food off my land as some full-
time farmers do."
"As a farmer, I put a pile of money
into the economy, and I don't think I
should be treated any differently. In
fact, I think we (part-time farmers) are
the majority of farmers." (In Canada,
150,000 commercial farms produce
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and
Food Jack Riddell almost weekly for
18 months to protest his ineligibility
for the Ontario Family Farm Interest
Rate Reduction program (the Whit-
more's make too much off -farm in-
come to qualify) and other govern-
ment policies.
"It does not make sense for
government policy to move farmers
off the land when the rural infra-
structure is already in place. There
are homes, schools, churches, arenas,
and ball parks already in our rural
Murray Clarke, Grey
federation president: "It's
becoming more of a fact all
the time that a significant
portion of our food comes
from the part-time farmer
and I believe we need all
farmers joined together ... if
we are to achieve price for
product and our just returns."
more than 80 per cent of our food. An
additional 168,000 farms are operated
as part-time ventures. In terms of
Ontario, one-half of the approximately
80,000 census farms produce less than
three per cent of the total agricultural
commodities, and their operators
essentially derive all their income
from non-farm employment.) But
part-time or not, Whitmore believes
strongly that farmers must command a
fair price for their product. "I don't
see why my colleagues here at the
school," he notes, "should eat cheaply
off my back."
"There really is no cheap food.
They pay very high taxes to support
the subsidies to business and agri-
culture as well as the welfare mill.
When you underpay your natural
resources, the lost income has to be
made up somehow — hence debt,
printed money, and high taxes."
Anyone, Whitmore says, who is
living on the farm and working it
should be treated as a farmer — a
definition that excludes absentee
landowners who, he says, destroy the
community. In the name of part-time
farmers, Whitmore has written to
communities. Why destroy them?
I can't understand why no one has
wondered why food banks and home-
less people in our cities became a real-
ity at the same time that the underpay-
ing of agricultural products became a
crisis. And isn't it funny that they can
raise the minimum wage in spite of
unemployment while the return from a
bushel of corn isn't even close to
minimum wage — machinery prices
have come down or manufacturers
have gone out of business because a
bushel of corn at $2 won't buy the
production of a $4 minimum wage."
Whitmore also objects to Section
31 of the Income Tax Act, which
requires (although it has been said that
there are loopholes) not only that a
farm show a reasonable expectation of
profit (or no loss is deductible), but
restricts a part-time farmer's loss
claim to $5,000 in aggregate per year.
Full-time farmers can deduct the full
amount of farming loss against all
other income without restriction. But
other business ventures and invest-
ments, Whitmore says, are not
similarly restricted, and the restriction
amount is unrealistic in view of the
high capitalization and risk of farming
in 1987.
Add to that, he says, the fact that
the Farm Credit Corporation wouldn't
lend him money as a part-time farmer.
"I believe the FCC used poor judge-
ment in not providing people like me
with long-term fixed-rate financing.
It's not surprising that the FCC is
broke today when they only took high-
risk clients. FCC financing would
have allowed me to avoid 23 per cent
flf .,ting bank rates from which it has
taken us five or six years to recover."
In the name of all farmers,
Whitmore supports the concept of
parity pricing. Until a bushel of com
is priced such that a farmer selling it
earns sufficient buying power, there
will continue to be more part-time
farmers, he says. The analogy he
draws comes from Henry Ford's
assembly line — Ford doubled his
workers' pay to $5 a day so they could
afford to buy the car they were pro-
ducing. And he cites the recently
announced Farm Management, Safety,
and Repairs Program as proof that
parity is needed. Farmers ought to be
earning enough to be able to afford
improvements to farm machinery
without government subsidization, he
says. "This program shows that gov-
ernment realizes that $2 corn won't
buy many parts, tools, or farm mach-
ines produced with labour at industrial
wage rates of $10 to $15 an hour."
"These little handouts keep the
farmers from getting too restless and
at the same time continue to irritate
the consumer."
In short, Whitmore says, he
empathizes with farmers' problems
because they're his problems too.
Full-time farmers, he says, shouldn't
look upon him as a threat, but as an
ally.
"If we pull together and influence
government policy, we can have a real
impact. But if we don't pull together,
we're all going to lose. As far as I'm
concemed, if you don't treat us as an
equal, more and more full-time far-
mers are going to become part-time
farmers."
"As long as we are divided, policy
will be determined by politicians,
bureaucrats, and academics rather than
by farmers. It is evident from the
advice in the '70s to plant fence to
20 THE RURAL VOICE