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Could it be the stock market action for these $companies$ mentioned? Too
bad the family farms are not on the stock market. Of course that would mean
there would have to a prices set at the farm gate to see good profits (as for
farm machinery, pesticide, genetics or fertilizer companies) and therefore good
returns for the investors.
Yes, the "free market" is wonderful. And all those farmers put out to
pasture? Soon to come to a street corner in your town, or is that gutter?
Darryl
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2006 8:11
AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] The farmers
still aren't jolly!
> Ed, can you say that the family farmers are
the ones suffering, while
> agro-business flourishes? This is what we
are seeing in the US. Whole
> farming villages are being abandoned,
buildings empty and crumbling,
> highways bypassing them.
>
> Cheers,
> Lawry
Don't really know, Lawry. My recent
interest in this whole business was arroused by going down to Parliament Hill,
talking to a few of the protesting farmers and taking a few pictures.
But here's how our National Farmers Union sees it:
Family farmers across Canada are experiencing
the worst farm income crisis in decades. In 2005, average realized net farm
income from the markets (not counting government payments) was approximately
negative $12,000 per farm. In 2004, it was negative $10,000 per farm, and in
2003, it was negative $16,000 per farm. These figures – after inflation is
taken into account - are well below those experienced by farmers in the
1930s. During the worst years of the Great Depression, the average Canadian
farm averaged $3,897 per farm from the markets (after average farm earned
negative $323 per farm.
Yet at the same time as family farms are in
crisis, the profit picture for the other links in the chain could not be
better. For the large agribusiness corporations that dominate in Canada,
2004 was the best year in history. Overall, their profits hit record highs.
Of the 75 companies profiled in a recent NFU study (The Farm Crisis and
Corporate Profits – see www.nfu.ca) 41 posted record profits, and another 16
had near-record profits or their second-or third-best year ever. Thus, 57 of
75 companies – 76% - had their best year or nearly their best.
A small number of very large companies dominate
the marketplace, and they are using their economic leverage to extract large
profits at the expense of family farmers. This fact was confirmed in a
recent report entitled "Empowering Canadian Farmers" (commonly referred to
as the Easter Report) released in July, 2005 by the federal government.
In a posting Mike Gurstein describes his
Saskatchewan hometown which he revisited some ten years ago as having
prospered while other towns withered away because it appeared to have won "the
geographic lottery". Some places gained as marketing and distribution
centres while others lost. I've put this message on my blog (http://members.eisa.com/~ec086636/newblog.htm)
along with a picture of my grandfather's house near Theodore, northwest of
Yorkton, Saskatchewan. The picture was taken a couple of decades ago, so
the house may no longer exist. However, in the 1930s and early 1940s,
the farm on which the house was situated supported my grandparents, an aunt
and an uncle, plus my parents for a time. It also helped several other
uncles and aunts acquire farms of their own. Times were different for
farmers then.
Ed
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