One of the main themes that I have heard during my cross-Canada “Food For Thought” tour has been the negative effect of trade agreements on the family farm.
Although we are a trading nation and rely on export markets for many commodities such as wheat and canola many farmers are questioning the validity of agreements such as NAFTA when it concerns cattle, pork, fruit, and vegetables.
According to a National Farmers’ Union (NFU) report “The Crisis in the Cattle Industry” our exports have tripled in the last 20 years while the return to cattle producers has dropped to less than one-half of what it was before the free trade agreement (FTA) was signed with the U.S.
Our pork industry is currently facing a crisis. According to Stuart Wells, President of the NFU, “the politicians and ‘hog establishment’ continue to talk about the perfect storm of high dollar, high feed costs, country of origin labeling, and swine flu, and the perfect storm mantra is parroted non-stop by the media as the conventional wisdom.”
Our hog market is totally integrated with the U.S. market which has basically meant that hogs have gone freely back and forth across the border. With the implementation by the U.S. of country of origin labeling (COOL) many packing plants in the U.S. no longer accept Canadian hogs. The response from our federal government and cattle and pork industry has been to try and convince the U.S. government to abandon this protectionist policy. I, along with other members of the House of Commons Agriculture Committee, traveling to Washington earlier this year to try and convince our U.S. counter parts that this policy is bad, not only for Canadian farmers, but also for the U.S. cattle and pork industry. However, all of this lobbying is a noble effort that will not really see a shift in U.S. policy. The congressmen and congresswomen we spoke to politely listened and nodded their heads but ultimately will make decisions that are politically appropriate. The current mood in the U.S. is “buy American” and support for American industry.
We saw this summer the impact that free trade has had on our B.C. cherry growers. Although they had a bumper crop, many were hurt financially due to the influx of U.S. cherries into Canada. This is symptomatic of how farmers throughout the world have been hammered by, what I call, “corporate rights agreements”. Prior to NAFTA, Mexico was self-sufficient in corn; farmers were able to survive as they produced corn for the Mexican market. Now, 30% of the corn consumed in Mexico is imported from the U.S. where farmers have been forced off their land. According to a CBC report, many of them have no choice but to become involved in the drug trade or to seek employment in the U.S. as illegal immigrants.
According to Stuart Wells, there was tremendous pressure on the corporate pork industry to do away with single desk marketing for hogs which had been put into place to give farmers market power. Provincial governments in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Ontario bowed to this measure and basically gave the control over to multinational corporations. It is precisely these corporations which seek open borders for agriculture.
At the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations there is pressure in Canada to weaken the supply management system in the dairy, poultry, and egg sectors, as well as to eventually do away with the single desk mandate of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB).
As far as I can make out, based on what I have heard during my tour, trade agreements have taken a heavy toll on our family farms. They have also made us more and more dependent on imported food, and as a result, we have basically lost control of our domestic food supply, that is, our food sovereignty.
I firmly believe that it is the responsibility of our federal government to take this control back, even if this means renegotiating NAFTA. The survival of our country is at stake!