Prime Minister Stands Up For Canadian Farmers

I appreciate his honesty when he furthered that the aide could by no means be as extreme as our neighbours to the south. He feels that country has extended itself beyond their own means by doing so.

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Expect little from life and get more from it.

Mr Harper is a neoclassically brainwashed economist. As long as the corporations make profits and the phoney GDP goes up, everything is OK in the never-never land of economics.<br />
<br />
Ed Deak.<br />
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<a href="http://www.nfu.ca/new/corporate_profits.pdf">http://www.nfu.ca/new/corporate_profits.pdf</a><br />
<br />
<br />
The Farm Crisis & Corporate Profits<br />
<br />
A Report by Canada's National Farmers Union, November 30, 2005<br />
<br />
The farm income crisis has reached excruciating intensity. For Canadian<br />
farm families and their net incomes, 2004 was the second-worst year in<br />
history. But for agribusiness, 2004 was the best year in history. Is there<br />
a link? This report uses 2004 as a case study and takes a detailed look at<br />
the profitability of the dominant agribusiness corporations. This report<br />
follows the money.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
These worse-than-the-Depression net incomes have driven farmers off the<br />
land -- cutting their number by 11% in the five years between the latest<br />
agricultural censuses (1996 and 2001). If this rate of loss persists (and<br />
it is probably accelerating), it will cut the current number of farmers in<br />
half by 2025. And the negative effects are not confined to our farms. Many<br />
rural communities are withering. After more than a century of developing<br />
and populating rural Canada, today we're boarding up stores, closing<br />
schools, and ripping up railway tracks. The Canadian economy suffers as it<br />
loses the profits from food production. Taxpayers suffer as they are made<br />
to pay four to five billion dollars per year to support farmers. And the<br />
country suffers as these billions are taken away from education,<br />
healthcare, environmental protection, the arts, and infrastructure. All<br />
parts of Canadian society suffer as a result of this unprecedented<br />
disintegration of the systems that previously returned adequate prices,<br />
revenues, and profits to the families and communities that produce our<br />
food.<br />
<br />
<br />
The best of times<br />
<br />
Clearly, our family farms are in crisis. But to understand this crisis, we<br />
must understand these farms in their economic context -- as the central<br />
link in an agri-food chain that reaches from energy, fertilizer, seed, and<br />
chemical companies and banks at one end, to processors, packers, retailers,<br />
and restaurants at the other. Our agri-food chain extends from the oil well<br />
to the drive-through window.<br />
Compared to our family farms, the profit picture for the other links in the<br />
chain could not be more different. For the agribusiness corporations<br />
dominant in Canada, 2004 was the best year in history; overall, profits hit<br />
record highs. Of the 75 companies profiled in the following pages and for<br />
which profit data is available, 41 posted record profits, and another 16<br />
had near-record profits or their second- or third-best year ever. Thus, 57<br />
of 75 companies -- 76% -- had their best year, or nearly their best. None<br />
of the listed corporations experienced a record or near-record loss. No<br />
other sector experienced losses overall, and certainly none experienced<br />
losses comparable to those of farmers. 2004 was as good for agribusiness as<br />
it was bad for farmers.<br />
...<br />
<br />
Farmers' 2004 Return on Equity from the markets was negative 5.09% (see<br />
"Farmers' profits" sidebar on page 3). Their ROE rate was similarly<br />
negative in 2003, and will be again negative in 2005. And farmers' ROE from<br />
the markets has been negative in every year of the last 20. Overall,<br />
Canadian farmers have not earned a single dollar of profits from the<br />
markets since 1984. Over the same period, agribusiness has accumulated<br />
profits almost certainly reaching into the trillions.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
How their good times create our bad times<br />
<br />
"The free market is a myth. Everybody knows that. Just very few people say it<br />
. . . . f I'm not smart enough to know there's no free market, I ought to<br />
be fired. . . . You can't have farming on a total laissez-faire system<br />
because the sellers are too weak and the buyers are too strong."<br />
--Dwayne Andreas, CEO of Archer Daniels Midland Corporation.<br />
<br />
In 2004, agribusiness posted record profits while farmers shouldered<br />
near-record losses. How come? In the past, the NFU has said simply that the<br />
farm crisis is caused by an imbalance in market power that creates a<br />
parallel imbalance in the allocation of profits within the agri-food chain;<br />
farmers are making too little because powerful corporations are taking too<br />
much. This report goes further -- listing and analyzing many of the<br />
mechanisms that agribusiness uses to extract ever-increasing revenues and<br />
profits at the expense of farmers. Such an analysis of mechanisms is<br />
essential to any process of public policy reform that seeks to restore farm<br />
profitability.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
Many economists dead wrong about farm crisis<br />
<br />
To some economists, what we call the farm crisis is just the normal evolution<br />
of the sector -- better technology leads to larger and more efficient, but<br />
fewer, farms. In this view, the expulsion of farmers is unavoidable<br />
short-term pain leading to long-term gain.<br />
<br />
This view might be defensible if the restructuring led to prosperity for the<br />
large, high-tech farmers who remain. But it does not. Figure 1 shows that<br />
net farm incomes for the past 20 years have been far below "normal"<br />
levels -- essentially zero. Economists' "evolution of the sector" assessment<br />
fails to predict or explain the massive shift in profitability from farmers to<br />
agribusiness.<br />
<br />
This shift in profitability begs explanation because it came at a time<br />
of rapid farm expansion, efficiency gains, and technology adoption.<br />
Economists should ponder whether getting bigger and purchasing more<br />
technology will move farmers out of the crisis, or deeper in.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
As noted earlier, farmers' marketing agencies are under attack in the<br />
marketplace and at the trade table. The World Trade Organization agreement<br />
and other trade agreements are entrenching Intellectual Property Rights<br />
(IPR) protections -- patents, trademarks, and Plant Breeders' Rights --<br />
around the world. At the same time, though, the dominant nations at the<br />
trade tables (spurred by the agendas of the dominant corporate players)<br />
seem bent on using the talks and agreements to destroy farmers' collective-<br />
marketing agencies, such as the Canadian Wheat Board and our<br />
supply-management systems for poultry, eggs, and milk. Thus, global trade<br />
agreements are focused on the seemingly contradictory ends of destroying<br />
farmers' single-desk selling agencies and proliferating comparable<br />
single-desk powers for the dominant seed, gene, chemical, and veterinary<br />
drug companies. Monsanto's gene monopolies must be respected everywhere,<br />
while the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly powers must be terminated.<br />
<br />
The reason given for attacking farmers' collective-marketing agencies? They<br />
create "market distortions." But with OPEC at one end of the agri-food<br />
chain and Wal-Mart at the other end, the task of eradicating market<br />
distortion would seem a daunting one. And with farmers' prices and profits<br />
at all- time lows and agribusiness prices and profits at all-time highs,<br />
the question is: In the virtuous crusade to rid our markets of all<br />
distortions, must our first task be to make farmers surrender their<br />
marketing agencies? Might we not better start with Monsanto's patents or<br />
OPEC's cartel? A cynic might even suggest that the surest way to predict<br />
whether a trade agreement will entrench or target a given "market<br />
distortion" would be to ask whether that distortion adds to or subtracts<br />
from the profitability of the world's dominant corporations.<br />
<br />
<br />
Conclusion<br />
<br />
Agribusiness corporations use a vast array of techniques to suppress<br />
competition and maximize their profits. This report documents their<br />
tremendous success: their profits are at record levels. But some policy<br />
makers and even some farmers may still resist the assertion that this<br />
aggressive extraction of revenues and profits causes the farm income<br />
crisis. Let's examine a few economic indicators:<br />
<br />
* Canadian farmers operate in one of the richest, most stable food<br />
economies in the world;<br />
* For over four decades, farmers have posted unmatched, economy-leading<br />
efficiency gains;<br />
* Farmers' costs-per-unit are at record lows;<br />
* Wages in the sector are at all-time lows (often zero, with farm families<br />
surviving on off-farm income);<br />
* Per-acre, per-worker, and per-farm production are all at record highs;<br />
* Canadian food exports (and worldwide demand for food imports) are at or<br />
near record highs;<br />
* Global demand is at a record level (food consumption and spending in 2004<br />
hit all-time highs);<br />
* Supplies are tight and falling (we have drawn down global grain reserves<br />
by 42% in just six years);<br />
* Global per-capita food production is falling, and it has been since 1980,<br />
and<br />
* Non-agricultural food sources, such as fish, are also becoming scarcer.<br />
<br />
Thus, amid record-high demand, economy-topping efficiency, record-low<br />
costs, and consumption outstripping production, farmers have posted their<br />
largest losses in history. And agribusiness corporations have posted their<br />
largest profits. These facts are compatible with only one explanation of<br />
the farm crisis: the rewards of farmer productivity, efficiency, and<br />
cost-cutting are being seized by more-powerful players in the agri-food<br />
chain. Farmers are being plundered and liquidated. Farmers' profits haven't<br />
just disappeared; they've been taken. The farm crisis didn't just happen;<br />
it was caused. The family farm isn't dying; it's being killed. And the<br />
perpetrations of this destruction are the agribusiness corporations who are<br />
using their market power to extract profits that would otherwise end up on<br />
our farms. Farmers can't make a living because agribusiness giants insist<br />
on making a killing.<br />
<br />
<br />
In the hope that our elected leaders will begin to speak the truth about<br />
the causes of the farm crisis, in the hope that those leaders will have the<br />
courage to act in accord with that truth, in the hope that agribusiness<br />
will be restrained from its plunder of our farms and communities, and on<br />
behalf of farm families around the world, respectfully submitted by the<br />
National Farmers Union<br />

At the CNE 2 years ago, a dairy farmer claimed 97% of farms in Canada were still family farms.....I would be more worried about this Ed: (people might want to e-mail Tony Clement or Harper about this one)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://newfarm.org/international/news/020104/2.1.04/ca_bse.shtml">http://newfarm.org/international/news/020104/2.1.04/ca_bse.shtml</a><br />
<br />
Canada to continue to allow blood in cattle feed<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
February 3, 2004, just-food.com: Canadian scientists have come to a different conclusion then the U.S.’s, they have found little risk that blood passes mad cow disease. Therefore, the Canadian Ministry of Agriculture announced, Canadian farmers will continue to feed cow’s blood to cattle. <br />
<br />
Washington has urged that Canadian farmers ban the practice.<br />
<br />
Cow’s blood is used as a milk replacement for dairy calves that are separated from their mothers. Canada has banned feeding material from ruminants to ruminants, but it makes exceptions for blood, fat and gelatin.....<br />
<br />
<br />
Anyone who is worried about this:<br />
<br />
Tony Clement, Minister of Health: <br />
<br />
Clement.T@parl.gc.ca<br />
<br />
Chuck Strahl, Minister of Agriculture: <br />
<br />
Strahl.C@parl.gc.ca<br />
<br />
Prime Minister Stehpen Harper:<br />
<br />
Harper.S@parl.gc.ca <br />
<br />
<p>---<br>People who openly hate America, while making money from America, burning U.S. flags, waving Mexican and Jamaican flags, while demanding the right to be American

97% may be family farms, but what of the area controlled, when it is only a fraction of what family farms owned 50 and especially 70 years ago.

As far blood in the cattle feed is concerned, I never use any cattle feed, neither do I use any antibiotics, or hormone and steroid implants. My cattle are running free and eat only grass and hay, the calves are not separated and they all thrive and healthy.

Most of these aberrations against nature are forced on farmers by corporate propaganda, taught in the corporately controlled universities and sold by farming papers and magazines with full page ads "Increase your profits".

The family farmers, many, if not most, who can only survive with outside jobs, fall for this crime wave in desperation.

The article is correct in stating that the family farm system is being killed. It is killed, once again, by the neoclassical theory. I once saw a bearded economist by the name of Lang interviewed on CBCTV, who said: "We must subsidize farmers to get them off the land". This is official theory and policy in the warped minds of these idiots.

Farmers, to a great extent, are self sufficient in many areas, which bugs the hell out of economists and politicians. Their idea and plan is the depopulation of the countryside and jamming everybody into cities to be "more efficient". In other words, forcing people to buy everything for their survival, at the mercy of a few multinationals, which would increase the phoney GDP.

Our Cariboo School District # 27, loses about 250 kids from the school system every year since Campbell came into power.

The same is happening all over the country, as an "efficiency measure". Figure it out why ?

Ed Deak.

In the hope that our elected leaders will begin to speak the truth about the causes of the farm crisis, in the hope that those leaders will have the courage to act in accord with that truth, in the hope that agribusiness will be restrained from its plunder of our farms and communities, and on behalf of farm families around the world, espectfully submitted by the National Farmers Union

Very good report! The Canadian farmer rarely receives the actual aid. This report states why. Corporate farms will determine what we pay at the supermarket and even marketing boards will disappear. All in the name of good business. Like any capital enterprise, these corporations will also be self-monitored. Big money will be spent to convince government of what consumer quality should be. Even more controls will be administered to those non-corporated farms. GM foods on the shelves and endorced as "good for you". We will see more government participation then monitoring. You won't be forced to eat it but will be convinced it's good for you.

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Expect little from life and get more from it.

"And nothing, Mr. Speaker, is more important than the family farm."

That being the case then the courts too should be protecting farmers from Monsanto and geneticly modified seed and death seed


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Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.
Ezra Pound
The only good is knowledge...