It's no secret that Canadian so-called supply management marketing board policies are a destructive relic from the 1970s. Frontier, along with several other Canadian think tanks has written extensively how they artificially raise prices for consumers while...
Agriculture
Government Must Stand up for Farmers and Commit to Ending Supply Management
Martha Hall Findlay has brought attention to Canada’s system of supply management; a system in which production quotas are allocated to dairy, poultry, turkey and egg farmers, and prices are set by their respective marketing boards. Farmers themselves are the victims of this status quo – particularly export dependent producers in Western Canada.
Canada’s Supply-Managed Stranglehold: How a system designed to help farmers is stopping companies from doing all the good things Ottawa says it wants from businesses – innovating, exporting and taking risks.
Critics of supply management have typically focused on the high cost paid by consumers. Cami’s predicament demonstrates how lost export opportunities and the stifling of agricultural innovation is harming a much broader swath of the economy. Supply management is sapping economic growth, jobs and productivity, up and down the food chain, not to mention the hit on government revenues.
The Supply Management Cartel: Collective Inaction and the Failure of Reform
Executive Summary • Supply management in Canada is a marketing board system that sets production and prices for dairy, poultry and eggs. Farmers must purchase quota in order to produce and sell product, which is collectively valued at $25-billion. The benefits of the...
Featured News
The Man who Saved the Plains Indians
At the time of Confederation, Canada’s Plains Indians were in a desperate situation. The same European-introduced guns and horses that resulted in a briefly glorious golden age for them had also resulted in constant inter-tribal warfare and the rapid disappearance of...
Renewed Talk of Abolishing the Indian Act
Political attacks on the Indian Act are back in the news, and that is a good thing. However, Canadian politicians, including First Nation politicians, need a credible plan about what to do before we pull out the champagne. Attacking the Indian Act is not a big deal...
Let Us Not Turn Our Backs on Science: Agricultural advances must continue
Regulations based on scientific assessments in agriculture are being ignored in order to privilege unproven opinion, belief and sometimes superstition.
Flee the Land of Quota: One farm family escaped the burden of debt needed to buy milk quota by moving its operation to the U.S.
Ten months ago we sold our eastern Ontario dairy farm and relocated on another dairy operation 20 miles away as the crow flies, in northern New York. Money and freedom were the reasons for our decision.
Small Farm Perspective on Policy
As an operator of a small livestock and forage farm, I keep an eye on policy developments in the broader agricultural sector. For the most part, I have an opinion that small farmers would be better off with less government intervention and direct assistance in the agriculture sector. I am not a fan of farm subsidies, intrusive regulations, or single desk marketing boards.
A post at GRIST presents a American “progressive perspective” on how current farm policy discussions are moving in the United States. It is interesting that the message in the article is small farms will benefit from functioning competitive markets and reduced direct subsidies.
CWB Kills Wheat Acreage: Single desk prairie provinces lose wheat acreage while open market Ontario gains.
Canada is losing its status as a wheat super power with acreages steadily falling over the past fifteen years. Acreage is falling in all Prairie provinces but not in Ontario. This may be because the Prairie farmers are bound to the Canadian Wheat Board, but Ontario farmers have marketing freedom.
Oat Farms Blossom Without Wheat Board: Oat farmers formerly had to sell to the government monopoly
“This past harvest season, a lot of Western Canadian farmers who grew oats, myself included, took something for granted. That was the ability to sell and deliver our crop to market at a time of our own choosing. Not so long ago, this was not the case. We have one man in particular to thank for this: Charlie Mayer.”
Beyond Potash: Future of the potash industry
Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (PCS) controls more than one-fifth of the world’s reserves of potash; its home province of Saskatchewan sits on roughly half of that amount. As we move forward, an assessment of our agricultural policies and marketing practices in the context of the rapidly changing world of agricultural commodities is long overdue. The strategy should make sense to all Canadians, both politically and economically.
Dairy Farmers Still Milking All Of Us
“Supply management has remained basically unchanged since its inception more than 40 years ago. It has enriched dairy farmers, blackened Canada’s reputation as a free trading nation, forced Canadians to pay a hidden regressive tax on dairy products at the checkout counter and undermined the efficiency of both dairy farmers and commercial users of dairy products.”
Climate Changes, Grain Exports and A New World Order in Food: Higher food prices may be coming at right time
There is hardly a crisis in agricultural commodities but rather a continuing recalibration between supply and demand.
Attention Whole Foods Shoppers: Stop obsessing about arugula. Your ‘sustainable’ mantra — organic, local, and slow — is no recipe for saving the world’s hungry millions.
“Though it’s certainly a good thing to be thinking about global welfare while chopping our certified organic onions, the hope that we can help others by changing our shopping and eating habits is being wildly oversold to Western consumers.”