The Rural Voice, 1983-09, Page 53KEITH ROULSTON
Closing off
the 500 club
by Keith Roulston
A few years ago there was a fre-
quent topic of discussion at farm
meetings I was covering. Some
farmers wanted licencing of farmers.
These farmers pointed at profes-
sionals like doctors and lawyers who
had a monopoly on being able to
practice their professions. They also
looked and saw these same profes-
sionals buying up farms and country
places for vacations then raising
livestock and selling them, and,
because their main area of livelihood
wasn't from the production of
livestock, could afford to take less
than a real farmer.
Eventually, cooler heads prevailed
and the discussion of licencing of
farmers seemed to die down. But
now, without much discussion, one
area of farming at least has brought
in defacto licencing of farmers.
Recently the Ontario Egg Producers'
Marketing Board announced that no
longer would non -quota farmers be
able to keep up to 500 hens. From
now on, any farmers not owning
quota, would be able to keep only 100
hens.
This doesn't, the board was quick
to say, effect the farmers who were
already keeping more than 100 hens
but Tess than 499 hens. These would
still be allowed to keep their current
number. It would, however, prevent
anybody new from getting into the
500 club. While 500 hens might not
seem like a lot, the board stressed the
danger of over -production because
too many people were starting to put
in a few hens as a way of getting a lit-
tle extra income.
What we have, then, is virtually a
licence to farm. In fact egg producers
have done the doctors and lawyers
one better. Anybody with intelligence
and hard work can hope to be a doc-
tor or a lawyer. You don't have to
buy the licence to practice. Yet if you
want to be an egg farmer, you've got
to buy the licence from some other
farmer who's already got it. The cost
of that licence has been going up so
much !hat sot,' you won't he ahle to
buy it. The only person who can af-
ford to get into the business will be
the son of a current egg producer, a
man, who, by the way, got at least the
base quota for nothing.
What we are doing is creating our
own class society in Canada, all with
the best of intentions. We have set up
marketing boards to try to save the
family farm. But by putting market
value on quotas, whether for eggs or
milk or chickens, we have made it
more profitable to sell the quota than
use it, for many smaller family farms.
In the poultry industry in particular,
we have seen a greater and greater
concentration of ownership since the
quota system came into being.
What's more, every time a
marketing board comes down with
one of these dictatorial decrees, ac-
ting as the solid arbiters of what is
right and wrong, it destroys a little
more of the credibility of the market
sharing quota system. There have
been many of us who have fought
against urban paranoia and misinfor-
mation to stand up for the marketing
boards, yet moves like the egg pro-
ducers make it harder and harder.
And silly regulations like this one
only pit farmers against farmers.
Would an egg producer, for instance,
like it if hog farmers told him he
couldn't keep a few hogs on the side?
Would he like it if he was told that,
no, he couldn't plant corn this year
because we had enough corn so that
only people who grew corn last year
could grow it again?
We have taken the quota system
which at best should have been a stop
gap system to keep farmers in
business, and instead of improving it,
we have bureaucratized it so that, in
many cases, it has lost its initial in-
tent.
It farmers themselves don't do
something to clean up the mess, it's
going to be impossible to defend the
marketing system from the pressure
of urban consumers who would like
to see it scrapped. Now, was there
really that much gained by closing off
the SOn club?
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THE RURAL VOICE SEPTEMBER 198, PG 51