The Rural Voice, 1986-04, Page 14QUALITY
JP
WORKWEAR
at affordable prices
CHARMANS
519-528-2526 Lucknow
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AGR/ SERVICES
\_Y10VPA0R\ SNC,.
FEED AND FORAGE ANALYSIS
SOIL TESTING
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MANURE ANALYSIS
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MICROBIOLOGY
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LABORATORY INC.
R.R. #1 (Box 155)
Breslau, Ontario
NOB IMO
Phone: (519) 742.5811
12 THE RURAL VOICE
that they want fair prices for produce,
not handouts. 1 hope our leaders, farm
and political, are listening. Most of our
product is consumed in Canada.
Failure to receive reasonable prices,
which reflect our cost of production
for domestically consumed product, is
basically our own fault. Concerning
exports, the logic of supplying the
U.S., Japan, or the world with pro-
ducts such as pork, beef, or dairy pro-
ducts below the cost of production on
a continuing basis completely escapes
me. It may benefit the feed mill, the
bank, or the machinery company, but
not the farmer. Experts such as
western wheat or feed grain are a dif-
ferent matter, and government par-
ticipation through subsidized exports
to retain long-term markets may well
be justified.
If the marketing strategies recom-
mended in the Farm Income Commit-
tee's report to Hon. William A.
Stewart had been in place, the trauma
that agriculture has suffered in the
eighties would have at least been great-
ly reduced. I hope to outline practical
ways to undo the damage done to
agriculture by past errors and to get
our industry back into the economic
mainstream again before time runs out
for more farmers and for the family
farm concept.
A county pork board leader was
recently quoted as saying that "there
have always been ups and downs in the
pork industry," implying that the pre-
sent situation is normal and that the
problems will resolve themselves in due
time. This is an honest opinion that is
still held by some producers of all com-
modities. And it is dead wrong.
The most serious misconceptions be-
ing held today are that we are still
operating in times and conditions com-
parable to the nineteen sixties and
seventies, that the technological
revolution in farm production of the
past twenty years is of little conse-
quence, and that marketing methods
that worked reasonably well in the past
can reverse our present depression.
Many farmers, including farm
leaders, have not yet understood that
this world depression in agriculture has
been caused by a chain of cir-
cumstances that began with new pro-
duction technology, which led to in-
creased production followed by
surpluses and depressed prices.
Farmers and leaders must recognize
that the main problem is first, last, and
always a problem of marketing.
Technology has only one way to go —
forward. It would have been in-
conceivable ten years ago to think that
India and China would be exporters of
food. Ever-increasing food production
will continue.
Given their global nature, can
anything be done to alleviate our pro-
blems? Is the family farm concept
redundant, as the economists tell us —
an anachronism destined by present
circumstances to give way to corporate
agriculture, along the lines of the
poultry industry in the U.S.? I main-
tain that we still have a choice. In fact,
a choice has already been made by our
dairy and poultry farmers, among
others.
We can go one of two ways. We can
opt for having the open American
market as the basis for our industry
and our prices, keeping in mind that
the American market, for all intents
and purposes, is the world market for
most commodities due to its tremen-
dous production capacity. Or we can
opt for a marketing system where
Canadian food needs and Canadian
price and wage structures are taken in-
to account.
1 submit that the second option, pro-
duction planned to fulfill domestic
needs at cost of production prices, with
only our exports on world prices, is our
only hope for a profitable agricultural
industry.
Free trade with the U.S.: It should
be obvious that if we were to enter into
free trade, our industry will eventually
go whatever way the American in-
dustry goes. The dog will wag the tail,
not vice versa. What then is the prog-
nosis for American agriculture?
Currently they are in a somewhat
worse situation than us. We have
relatively prosperous diary and poultry
sectors. Their dairy sector is no more
prosperous than is their red meat sec-
tor and their poultry sector is basically
controlled by corporate agribusiness.
At the OFA annual meeting a few
months ago an American agricultural
economist and analyst, Dr. Farrell,
estimated that 30 per cent of current
American farmers would be "ra-
tionalized" out of farming in the near
future. He predicted the end of the
family farm era in the United States by
the year 2000. He said that by that time
there would be hundreds of thousands
of small, part-time, hobby -type farms,
which would produce about 15 per cent
of the food, and that large corpora-
tions would produce the rest. We
should not write off Dr. Farrell as a
kook. His views are held in the U.S.
and present trends there confirm what
he says. The poultry industry, where a
few dozen corporations produce the
bulk of the product, is living proof of
what he says, and the pork and dairy
industries are quickly following the
same way. The question we must ask
ourselves is "Do we want to go that
route?"
Regarding the philosophy of gung
ho, all-out production for the free,
open, American (world) market, we
must ask ourselves "How really free is
it?" What about subsidized exports
and dumping? What about Third
World wage scales — for example,
competing on world pork markets
against Chinese living standards?
When we export pork, for instance,
below cost of production, as we have
been doing for years, who actually
loses money? Do the feed mills lose?
Or the packers and their employees?
Or the Vet? Or the truckers? Are they