DISGRUNTLED FARMER

Canadian Farmers in Crisis and No One Cares

*** Trigger Warning ***

If you are a farmer you might be triggered if you read this and may need to seek a safe space in the Back 40.

*** Trigger Warning ***

As Canadians prepare for their Christmas feasts of turkey, ham, potatoes, and all the trimmings, it would be nice if they would give a thought to all the hard working farmers who make it possible for them to be enjoying all of their food abundance. It would also be nice for Canadians to wake up to the fact that Canada’s family farm is headed towards extinction.

Once in a while, I get into a circular farm related discussion on social media with some townie who think they are farming experts and don’t need to listen to someone who actually farms. The easy way to shut them down is to challenge them to go without any farm produced products for six months and I will go without whatever they produce for the same period. Townies would be eating grass to stay alive and most of the population would be dead in a month without a regular food supply. So, maybe farmers are perhaps a vital industry and maybe they should be treated as such.

As you are loosening your belt after too much holiday eating, many Prairie farmers are selling grain and livestock to generate some year-end income in order to pay the bills. Farmers sell their produce on the open market and get paid according to whatever the going rate is. The problem is that over the years, their input costs keep increasing and unlike other industries they cannot recoup their losses by passing increased costs along to the consumer.

Here are a few examples. Adjusted for inflation, the $7/bushel wheat that our farm has been selling this week was worth $34/bushel back in 1870. The feeder calves we sold at market the other day are fetching about the same price per pound as my great-grandfather was getting back in 1918. The value of farm receipts wildly fluctuate year to year with StatsCan reporting that farmer’s net income across Canada took a 45% drop in 2018 compared to 2017.

Imagine for one second if a union or civil servant was asked to take a 45% pay cut for the coming year.

So what’s to be done in order to bring this crisis to the forefront of Canadian politics? Here are a few thoughts:

• Canadian farmers need to take a page from their EU counterparts and stage large protests. At less than 2% of the population, farmers do not wield much political power except in specific pockets such as the dairy industry in Quebec. Shut down Ottawa for six months or as long as it takes until the politicians start paying attention. Going on strike would not be practical as Canada produces such a surplus of food, most of it gets exported. But if there were food shortages, that would get the public’s attention pretty quick.
• Farm groups need to mount massive advertising campaigns to educate the public on the importance of farmers to Canada and the World’s food supply. The Dairy Farmers of Canada are on the right track with their recent ad series. Like it or not, marketing ads work.
• Farm groups need to pressure politicians to shut down NGOs and activists who are spewing absolute nonsense about farm practices. Alberta is on the right track with beefed up laws to crack down on nuisance farm protesters. The anti-farm crowd uses constant fear-mongering, hyperbole, and outright lies to demonize farming. This has led to burdensome and costly regulations enacted by legislators who have little to no understanding of farming and its benefits.
• Food security should be a national interest. Government programs need to be set up to halt and reverse the hemorrhaging being experiences by Canadian farmers. Very few young people are staying with or entering the field of farming. Incomes need to rise and farmers need to be paid a fair price for their produce. But none of this is new as farmers have been dealing with this crisis since the mid-80’s and have been proposing the same solutions to deaf ears.

It is unfortunate that our country is so vast and our farmers are so independent. Otherwise serious action probably would have taken place much earlier to halt this farming crisis.

So have a thought this Christmas season regarding who made it possible for you to set your table.

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.