The Rural Voice, 1980-02, Page 16Keith Roulston
The quota problem --again
The continued success of any society depends on its ability to
allow new blood to replace the old in economic, social and all
other concerns. Societies that have died have been those that
strangled themselves by making sure the people who are on top,
stay on top. Instead, everybody ends up on the bottom.
It's one of the lessons of history we refuse to learn. Each
society somewhere along the line makes the same mistake and
the health of the country or civilization begins to decline.
Eventually another country, younger and more energetic takes
over the leadership.
Slowly but surely Canada and the United States are taking the
downward road to economic and social stagnation. We could still
change direction but it doesn't appear that anyone in position to
make the changes wants to.
In business we see how it is harder and harder for the
energetic young person with ideas to build from nothing into a
successful business. Take a look, for example, at the food
industry where the large chains are taking an ever larger share of
the retail side of the business. Our own area has seen the huge
corporate -owned chains invading even the smaller towns once
thought the last preserve of the independent retailer.
The large retail chains like to simplify business and for them it
is easier to deal with fewer suppliers, which means bigger
suppliers. The way up for a new guy on the block in processing is
pretty difficult given the log -jam of big corporations above him.
In the farming community the same requirement for new blood
is evident. For years of attending farm group meetings I heard so
much about the need for younger farmers. The generation that
had kept Canadian farms going since the Second World War was
nearing retirement age. Young farmers had to be attracted to the
business.
There were many stumbling blocks to the encouragement of
young farmers to get into the business. The cost of land soared.
Equipment costs have become a bigger and bigger factor in
setting up a farm. The cost of stocking a farm has increased. And
on top of all that there is the high cost of credit.
All this means that the cost of setting up a farm for a young
man or woman is now beyond the reach of nearly everyone.
Unfortunately there's not much farmers can do about the
situation. They're
the victims of the economic situation, big business and
government policies over credit.
But for young farmers interested in getting into some kinds of
farming there is yet another hurdle to be leaped. Farm
marketing boards in some areas of the industry have put a price
on quotas meaning the young person who wants to get into
production of milk or chickens or some other commodities must
not only pay all the other set-up costs but also buy a quota to get
into business. Naturally many young people start looking around
instead for a kind of farming that doesn't require quota, thus
causing problems of overproduction for people, in unregulated
segments of the industry such as cattle and hog production.
With the development of the farming industry since the
Second World War the introduction of marketing boards was
essential. The decline of the farm population coupled with the
growth of power of the buyers of farm products meant farmers
had to take some actions to protect themselves or there would
soon be no family farm.
Yet by allowing a value to be placed on quota,farmers are now
helping to create the same situation they themselves fought
PG. 14 THE RURAL VOICE/FEBRUARY 1980
against, but now for a younger generation of farmers. Quota
values only benefit the established farmers at the expense of the
young person trying to get into the business. It's easier for the
established farmer to be able to buy quota to expand than it is for
the young farmer to buy quota to set up business in the first
place. And remember, the farmers that were in business when
the quota first came in didn't have to pay for quota at all.
Whatthe quota system is doing is encouraging larger and
larger farm units because only the person already in the business
benefitsfrom quotas with a price. But what happens when the
farm units become too big. No younger generation of farmers can
afford to buy such large food factories. Likely the farms will be
taken over by corporations, perhaps by subsidiaries of the
companies that already control the rest of the food chain. The
biggest argument against this has been that they couldn't get
labour cheap enough to run a farm but once control of enough
huge farms has passed to the corporations they'll be able to
increase food prices high enough so they can afford to pay union
wages to farm workers.
By protecting the established farmer at the expense of the new-
comer, marketing boards that insist on selling quotas on the
open market are sowing the seeds of destruction of the farm
system.
A Ma tter of principle
by J. Car/ Hemingway
See you on Feb. 18th
So the Government has been defeated and the election date
has been set.
Why was the Government defeated?
To answer this could take pages and pages but I haven't the
time to write it and I'm sure the Rural Voice hasn't space to print
it so I will have to limit my comments to Matters of Principle and
leave it to you to fill in details."
The basic "Principle" of the Clark Government was to reduce
the national deficit. I'm sure that farmers in particular and all
"business" would agree that if their yearly balance sheet was
building up a yearly "deficit" comparable to the Canadian
Government they would introduce a policy in their enterprise
that would reduce their "deficit."
But how?
The "budget" was basically set up to do this by reducing
government spending, increasing interest rates, reducing
production, increasing unemployment and selling natural
resources.
That was not acceptable!
And why should it be since that was the identical policy of the