Ministers meeting to focus on national ag policy

© AgMedia Inc.

Ontario’s agriculture minister wants to obtain a fair share of funding for the province and reduce the strings on how it’s spent

photo: Ted McMeekin

Comments

McMeekin is quoted as saying "it’s important to him that Ontario farmers have a say in what’s in the next national agricultural policy agreement and how national support programs might be adjusted".

Giving the farmers a "say" and actually listening to what the farmers "say" are 2 completely different things.

Same circus, different clowns.

Until the province of Ontario can show a glimmer of respect to farmers and actually implement some of their requests, (i.e. requests for audits) I seriously doubt the sincerity of "farmer inclusive" consultations.

joann vergeer

here here

How can you respect these agr ministers of liberal and conservatives. The days of cheap interest and high grain prices is near the end.

Maybe he should be listening to the average farmers not the big corperate farms , at which they dish all the money out too.

 What most farmers don't seem to understand is that direct farm subsidies that are linked to pounds per animal or bushels per acre are actually, helping to eliminate farmers, Small farmers can not compete with large operators getting massive checks in the mail. We need to end programs like the most recent BRM program that was developed by the OFA, it is going to speed up the process of reducing farmers on the farm. If we are going to give farmers money it needs to be capped at a realistic level and not at 2 million dollars. the types of programs we need are funding for farm infrastructure and farm improvements and for all the enviromental services we as farmer provide.

Sean McGivern, President Practical Farmers of Ontario

 

Sean: Farm subsidies DO NOT support farmers. That is a simple fact.

Farm subsidies were put in place and continue in place for one reason and one reason only..... it is a subsidy to the domestic population.

An official cheap food supply law was instigated centuries ago for 2 reasons:

1; It is a public wage subsidy.

2; When the Crown reduced the farm gate price (the Crown retained price and quantity controls on agricultural commodities) it forces labour into manufacturing. By reducing farm incomes, there is a paradigm shift forcing labour into higher value industries which in turn stimulates the economy. Look at India today. Farm labour is becoming an issue.

Listen to what Mr. McGuinty says. He invests in health and education to further a 'knowledge based society'. A knowledge based society still needs "labourers". Skilled labour can either be imported or domestically trained. Food can be imported or produced domestically but our high inputs costs are a barrier to the 'cheap food' policy.

Farm subsidies... farm protection policies, I would speculate, will disappear the day our government feels confident that food supplies are secure from other sources........ and with our the government pursuing the Trans-Pacific Partnership.... I think that day will arrive sooner than later.

joann vergeer

Farm subsidies. especially subsidies paid directly to farmers, do support farmers, and nobody else - your contention that farm subsidies paid directly to farmers, are a subsidy to the domestic population, is dead-outright wrong, as well as patently absurd. Secondly, your argument that we have a cheap food policy is equally wrong, and equally absurd - especially since supply management's stated goal was to increase the price of food as it leaves the farm gate. There is absolutely NOTHING about supply management, for example, which is anything like a public wage subsidy, simply because the public's wages are being confiscated to subsidize farmers. Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

“so too must government make sure that our policies and programs are hitting the target in a modern and competitive environment.”

Their certainly can not be a problem when Ontario farmers are buying fully loaded $128 to 170000 corn planters to plant a crop that this fall posted elevator price is $4.50 a bu. Boom bust cycles come and go in farming so Stephen has tried for a decade to solve the SM problem but no politican will touch the problem on record,
We have a new want abe farm org going to solve the problem that his previous NFU back in the 60s and 70s said they would solve . it didnt happen and most of that era farm leaders are dead and we are holding the bag of mistakes. If OFA NFU and CFOO can not figure out and get real results this past decade , we have a problem. Unless this new organization is going to do something drastic they have no chance of getting their wanted results.

Is there away to force govt to get farmers results, and stop the results being Capitalized . Presnt and past farm org LOBBY DOES NOT WORK

You speak of different things as they belong to one and the same category.

The "cheap bread" law is a tool of the government to stimulate the economy. It was a tool used for many centuries.It worked well in Detroit when Mr. Ford needed workers. It worked well during the '40's when Britain experienced food shortages. It is working well to keep farmers in subjugation for obvious reasons.

Farmers are entitled to COP. Our own FIPA was designed at the same time as the USA Farm Bill. Both acts stem from the same ancient source of rights..... with its roots being that agriculture is a Public Trust........and I believe the ramification of that component does not need to be explained to you. I believe it was 1997, under Mr. Van Clief that our government started to shift the intent of the FIPA from an obligational public support program to a welfare program demonizing farm income.

Supply management is another matter all together. The significance of supply management is twofold.

1. Government controlling sovereign "licenses to trade".
2. Government controlling monopolies to to ensure sovereign domestic obligations are in compliance..... while at the same time reaping a "reward" from the mandated Public Trusts.

But the biggest supply managed sectors in our society are the doctors, nurses, teachers, police, firemen, accountants, day-care providers, lawyers, unions, etc......and the public, including you and me, are having our earnings confiscated to subsidize those public sectors.

When half of Ontario's budget goes to health alone...... I would hazard to guess a sizable amount of our income goes to non-agricultural supply management items.

joann vergeer

Rubbish is still rubbish, even when trying, as you are, to blur the picture. Cheap food as a way of subjugating farmers has been a fallacy promoted by farmers, as long as there have been farmers, and it always has been complete twaddle. Secondly, it is complete nonsense to claim that farmers are entitled to cost of production - those few who have been given this privelege, simply capitalized it back into asset values, and ratcheted up the cost of production in a never-ending spiral, as well as pitting farmers against one another. Good economic policy does not pit farmers against one another, yet supply management and ethanol do just exactly that. And, get over it, already, about so-called mandated Public Trusts - they exist only in your mind. And doubly get over it about comparing supply managed farmers to Doctors, or even day care providers. The last time I checked, there were absolutely no barriers to entry into the day care provision business. In addition, when Doctors can bequeath their medical practise to their children, and charge twice as much as Doctors in a neighbouring city in the US, you may have a point, but until then, you're completely out-to-lunch. Even worse for the credibility of your statement is that our medical system is funded so that the rich, and corporations, both pay their fair share through the income tax system, while, in supply management, the poor pay disproportionately the most - thereby meaning that there is absolutely no way to liken supply management to any sort of meritocracy, even though farmers who are illiterate in economics, always seem to want to do so. Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

There in lies the true problem in Ontario agriculture.

Farmers do not know their rights and the government is acutely aware of that.

When the facts of farm rights are clear, the choices for farm programs will be obvious.

How can we move forward in any meaningful fashion in regards to farm policy when we don't know our foundational rights?

The government is moving forward to to allow farmers "marketing freedom" so to exercise marketing "liberties" yet remain stubbornly silent about farmers' "obligations" to the public.

Our federal/provincial governments soon will gain the benefits of agricultural marketing "free trade" while, at the same time, be released of their obligations to the farmers.......at the demand of farmers whom are incognizant of their rights, duties and obligation.

There is a degree of knowledge filtration in the Ministry of Agriculture of which directly allows the government to purposely and intelligently design programs to the detriment of farmers... and hence..... to the detriment of the public at large.

There in lies the true problem in Ontario agriculture.......

sorry... forgot to sign before hitting the send..

joann vergeer

Subsidies in the form of tariff protection for supply management, and subsidies in the form of mandates for ethanol, are, in economic terms, far-worse, and far-more insidious, when it comes to pitting farmers against one-another, and when it comes to the legislated ability of the favoured sector(s) to "eliminate" those in another. Setting caps for this, that, or the other, program is still only addressing the symptoms of the problem rather than addressing the problem itself. Stephen Thompson, Clinton, ON

YOU ARE 100% CORRECT
grain farmers because of ethanol madates are now making money and spending it like water. SM farmers who are also production grain and corn farmers have adouble advantage

IF above is correct , we need to take these so callled experts civil servants who build their OMAFRA AND OTHER MINISTRY kingdoms WHO protect their kingdoms at the expense of best interest of society, Farmers are not saints they have become greedy wanting to " expand" and guess what, that takes out fellow farmers, Do our Ministers of Agr really know anything, " a tinkers dam" or is it their briefing books that makes them experts? By the way isnt it the civil servants that prepares the briefing books.
We have a hugh agr problem waiting to explode in the next 10 years , who will be the farmers and who will control farming. All common sense has exited. To days pension aged farmers have experienced the best and worse of farming, been the cause of some of this grief because of historical farm leader bungles of policy. With all these educated PHDs and tech we do agriculture management far worse than past generations. It is all about MONEY AND POWER AND WHO HAS IT.

I agree that the big guys are raking in the money from goverments and the small guys get nothing. We are a small farmer and don,t get any of the handouts from the goverments like them. The minister of ag. got a big smile on his face because he gets a big cheque. The end of the year we still have to pay income tax for the little we make and try to survive. The problem will never be solved till all the land is owned by a few big companies and control everything.

We have had too many changes of agr ministers

“so too must government make sure that our policies and programs are hitting the target in a modern and competitive environment.”
What kind of a corner gas jack ass comedian minister or leader would make that statemnt with the results we have in agri policy results

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