The Rural Voice, 2019-09, Page 79Perth, Huron,
Grey and Bruce
Craig Hulshof, President
craig.hulshof@gmail.com / 519-301-8483
* The Rural Voice is provided to
Perth County Pork Producers by the PCPPA
perthcountyporkproducers@gmail.comCounty Pork Producers NEWSLETTER
September 2019 75
There is a prevailing opinion
among some agriculture leaders that
we should always present “one
voice”; a united front for all farmers
when we approach government or
present messaging to the consumer at
large. The challenge with this desire
for everyone to sing “kumbaya” and
keep disagreements out of the public
eye is that while we are indeed all
farmers, we have competing
businesses. We use the same resource
base and are fighting for valuable
space on the consumer’s plate. In
what world can a singular approach
work when ultimately we are
competitors?
One can argue that this competition
narrative is being overly simplistic
and ignores the many common
challenges we share, especially in the
areas of consumer perception of
sensitive subjects like the
environment and health. These larger
issues of how farmers are perceived
by the public necessitates co-
operation among the different food-
producing industries and co-ordinated
approaches are the best way to
counteract misinformation coming
from special interest groups. Yes, it
is important to co-operate and in a
perfect world, all sectors of
agriculture could get along all the
time … but we don’t live in a perfect
world.
On August 16, the Federal
Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister
Marie-Claude Bibeau announced
$1.75 billion (that’s billions with a B)
for supply managed dairy farmers
here in Canada including $345
million of direct cash subsidies to be
paid out in 2019, allegedly for further
compensation for CETA and TPP.
For a farmer from a non-supply
managed industry it is getting hard to
keep up with all the “compensation’
being paid out to our farming
competitors. Wasn’t it just in 2018
that the Federal government delivered
compensation that saw taxpayers
cover a portion of the costs for robots
and other technological
advancements? At least the previous
rounds limited public investment to
things that largely did not create
inflationary pressure on the resources
red meat and grain farmers use. This
recent round is an egregious misuse
of taxpayer money that will fracture
an already tenuous relationship
between the supply-managed and
non-supply-managed farmers.
One of the strongest points for
supply management was the efficient
nature of wealth transfer from the
consumer to the farmer that didn’t
require direct government
involvement; the system ensured a
fair price was paid to the producer
and that insulated them from the large
swings that can occur in the open
market while protecting farmers
against a consolidated processing
base exercising oligopolistic pricing
power. Furthermore, the stability
offered by the system adds
confidence to shared businesses (like
feed manufacturing) and encourages
investment.
It is undeniable that recent trade
agreements have included market
access concessions for supply-
managed commodities while red
meat and grains have benefited
from increased global market access.
One could get down in the weeds to
argue about how much compensation
should be given for market
concessions but the reality is that as
long as we have some farmers who
rely on export markets and global
trade while others rely on protection
and tariffs, no one is ever going to
walk away happy from a trade
negotiation. What isn’t undeniable is
that this latest announcement has
absolutely nothing to do with
compensation and everything to
do with politics. Both the govern-
ing Liberals and opposition
Conservatives know that this fall’s
election will largely be determined by
results in Ontario and Quebec.
That is why both parties are
tripping over each other to
“compensate” dairy. They know
that there are at least 10 seats in
Quebec that can largely be delivered
by the dairy lobby, seats that could
decide who resides in the Prime
Minister’s office following October’s
election.
The political nature of the cash
subsidy is salt in the wound for red
meat and grain farmers, who, like
their supply-managed counterparts,
are being hammered by trade
disruptions and the ensuing financial
ramifications. In my little corner of
the world, a rough total of the direct
cash subsidy being paid out in a two-
kilometre radius of our home base
will be somewhere between $500,000
to $750,000 of taxpayer funds, in
large part, to established dairies.
Every dollar of this subsidy will go
straight into land or equipment
purchases, the same scarce resources
that we need to run our business in a
competitive manner at a time when
our revenues are being negatively
impacted by trade disruptions by at
least $20 per hog. There is a cruel
irony in the fact that some of the tax
dollars our household sends to
Ottawa will be used to further inflate
the cost of land around us.
Speaking with “one voice” has
always been a dubious goal that is
ignorant to the competitive nature of
our businesses. You cannot expect
individual business owners that
compete for land and other scarce
resources to always get along,
especially given we compete for the
consumer food dollar in Canada and
some of us depend on global market
access while others depend on
protection from global competition.
Political plays like this most recent
round of subsidies for dairy will just
further complicate an already uneasy
and complicated relationship. ◊
– Submitted by Stewart Skinner
The politics of compensation