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PRAIRIE PROVINCES

By FRANK GOLDSPINK

WINNIPEG — With the Manitoba
farm and rural community headed for
another disastrous year of record-high
bankruptcies and foreclosures, the pro-
vincial New Democratic Party govern-
Ment is being looked to more and more to
help fight off the banks and play a big part
I saving the family farm.

Tninterviews with the Tribune, farmers
from various parts of the province give the
NDP “‘part marks” for tentative steps to
Telieve debt loads and increase and
Stabilize incomes.

But they insist the province could be
doing more, both to relieve farmers’

financial burdens and to mobilize and
unify a farm and rural fightback.

Positive Steps

The NDP achievements listed for the
Tribune are:

e Lowering of interest rates on Man-
itoba Agricultural Credit Corporation
loans to eight per cent for one year. (“I
think it was of some help,” said one
farmer. Another called it ‘‘a real sign of
leadership’ and a move which ‘exposed
all the rest of them (the banks) who
wouldn’t do it.’”)

e Calling for a meeting of all federal
and provincial agriculture ministers with
the heads of the banks to discuss the farm

debt crisis. (The federal Conservatives
and most of the provincial Tory govern-
ments refused or snubbed the invitation,
as did the banks.)

e Introducing, in March, the Com-
prehensive Refinancing Program, with
the first $100,000 available at 934 per
cent. (By mid-May there were nearly 100
applications to the program.)

e Taking limited steps in stabilizing
prices for red-meat producers.

e Introducing debt review panels,
with some community input.

Moratorium Essential

The disappointments:

e No moratorium on foreclosures and
bankruptcies. (*‘They made some noises
about it last spring and then didn’t do
anything, despite the fact that there are
lots of party convention resolutions on
this.’’)

e Failure to introduce the promised
Manitoba Family Farm Protection Act.

e Not resisting the federal farm in-
come policy of ‘‘stabilization at a loss.”’

e Outright refusal to re-introduce
landbanking, akey, according to the farm-
ers who were interviewed, for young
people being able to get into farm-
ing or keep working the family farm.
(‘My biggest disappointment,’ said
one. ‘‘It was one of the best programs the
(former) Schreyer (NDP) government
ever put in for agriculture. It certainly got
to the root of the (land price) problem’’)

e The NDP’s emphasis on short-term
financial relief (‘‘It’s just another crisis
intervention and perhaps will cause a
delay in the fight for a proper income and
marketing policy.’’) -

The Winnipeg Free Press reported last
spring that farm prices were down an
average of 21 per cent in Manitoba from
1982, including a drop of as much as 35

Half measures limit farm fightback —

Adequate and stable farm income
must be the cormerstone of farm pro-
tection policy. A long-standing demand
of Prairie farmers has been for a system
of orderly marketing and effective
stabilization plans.

Bleak Outlook

“‘There’s no indication the trend is
going to reverse (for grain prices),”’ says
— farm activist. ‘‘That’s the bleak part
of it.”

Political action in the provinces is spe-
cially important because the federal Tory
“free traders”’ aren’t likely to act. “‘It’s
against their principles,’ one farmer told _
the Tribune.

- There is a strong belief that the NDP
could mobilize unified support for essen-
tial reforms and overcome long-standing
reservations and suspicions (fostered by
Tory and big business ‘propaganda) by
involving the farm community. in basic
political education and action programs,
around issues like landbanking, debt
moratorium and orderly marketing.

“It’s a matter of running your own
“‘literacy campaign’, to fight for the ones
who don’t understand,’ says one farm
leader.

“If you want to popularize an idea,
you lay out exactly what it could do so no
one would be afraid of it, so people
wouldn’t think the next guy is going to do
better, and to expose the real enemy, like
the financial institutions.

‘*And that’s going to be hard work.”’”

The NDP must also drop its tendency
to take a “‘divide-and-rule’’ approach
which promotes disunity. ‘‘Sometimes
the government seems to want to take
advantage because, after all, a 60-quarter
farmer and an eight-quarter farmer are
not going to ask for the same things.””

per cent in southwestern Manitoba.

Second of two parts

Just when Canadians thought the current agricultural
Crisis could get no worse, the federal Farm Credit Cor-
Poration has projected ‘‘another major financial cala-
mity”. And there are signals from bankers and Tory
Politicians that they intend to let thousands of productive
farmers go under ‘‘for the good of the industry.”

Grain prices will fall further next year, according to
FCC research director Ralph Ashmead, largely because
of a glut on international markets. He predicts yet an-
Other sharp drop in farm incomes and a rise in bank-
Tuptcies. The FCC has just released figures showing 23
Per cent of Canada’s farmers are under ‘‘severe financial
Stress’’ up from 17 per cent a year ago. Thousands who
had survived several years of bad weather and insects by
selling off grain inventories have run out of stocks and
have no way left to stave off bankruptcy.

Explosion of Bankruptcies
A new explosion of bankruptcies also threatens a faster
drop in land values — by as much as 40 per cent in
Saskatchewan, says Ashmead. That could cripple the
financial status of thousands of farmers who have es-
Caped the worst of the crisis until now, and would send
_ Shock waves through the banking system. Researchers
Say 30 per cent of Canada’s $21-billion farm debt may be
M arrears next year, and 10 per cent may never be
Collected. :
After months of vague promises and little action, the
katchewan Tory government has now swung to-
Wards a “‘let them sink’’ approach. Two revealing con-
ferences were held in Saskatoon recently, featuring poli-
ticians and bankers advising farmers to “stop resisting
the inevitable’’.
Speaking to 500 representatives from various agricul-
ture organizations Oct. 28, Premier Devine detailed the
history of the crisis. But instead of offering solutions, he
asked rhetorically: ‘‘Do we have the courage to make
Some structural changes in the way we do things to
Survive internationally? ... People get comfortable and
they don’t like change, but the only thing you can count
on for sure is that there are going to be some changes and
you best be able to cope with them.”

nks go into high gear against farmers

From.
Regina

Kimball
Cariou

‘Structural change’? has long been a _ polite
euphemism for wholesale reduction of the western farm
population. In Devine’s vision of this ‘‘new reality’’, the
most profitable producers will survive and compete head
to head with U.S. agribusiness, and the destruction of

‘rural communities is a necessary price to pay. In the

process, satisfying the demands of the railways, banks,
and agribusiness corporations takes top priority.
‘We've been whitewashed’’, was the reaction of
South West Drought Committee chairman John Wiebe,
describing the conference as ‘‘an exercise in futility’.
Prepare for Exodus

A week later, the same story unfolded in greater detail
at the Canadian Bankers Association agricultural credit

conference. The remarks of Pat Killoran, director of _

agricultural services for the Bank of Nova Scotia, were
typical: governments should stop trying to keep people
on the land and start preparing for the “‘inevitable
exodus”. ‘‘To resist the adjustment would not only be
extremely expensive but also dangerous to the competi-
tive health of the industry’.

University of Guelph economist George Brinkman
claimed ‘‘drought and war’’ are needed to bail farmers
out. He recommended that farmers should sell off fixed
assets, try to reduce machinery costs, and ‘‘be willing to
work part-time or have their spouses work full-time”’.
(Somebody should inform the professor that this is al-
ready common practise by farmers struggling to keep
their operations going, and that it has often devastating

effects on the lives of the families concerned. Already
off-farm wages and salaries account for nearly half the
net income of Canada’s farmers.) Brinkman’s useful
advice concluded with a warning that farmers in financial
difficulties should get out before all their equity is lost.
(Thousands who would like to are unable even to find
buyers!)

Saskatchewan deputy minister of agriculture Jack
Drew jumped on the bandwagon with his suggestion to
speed up the exodus. He advocated government grants
to ‘‘allow farmers to remove from the business with
dignity.”

‘Grants’ to Farmers

While there were some dissenting voices, the views of
conference participants were summed up in their
answers to a questionnaire. The majority called for:

e no legislation to assist farmers in financial trouble;

e allowing the marketplace to ‘‘adjust without inter-
ference’’;

e government assistance to “‘relocate and retrain
farmers’’ who are forced out of business.

Debt moratoriums and a legislated writedown topped
a list of government action opposed by the participants.

Various figures were thrown out at the gathering to
estimate the possible cost of aid to farmers facing
financial strains, ranging up to $3-billion or $4-billion.
Canadian banks appear to be heading for total profits of
over $2-billion in 1985, and other corporate interests are
also raking in huge profits from farmers. Canadian Paci-
fic has reported a profit of $196-million for the nine
months ending Sept. 30, and CN took in $34-million from
its rail operations during that period. Two of the biggest
U.S.-owned grain multinationals, Cargill and Contin-
ental, reported $12-million and $3.6-million profits
respectively from their Canadian operations last year.

Clearly there’s money to be made in farming in this
country — but not by most farmers. And the Conserva-
tive government in Canada’s’ breadbasket,
Sasktcehwan, has now joined big business in openly
declaring that it doesn’t intend to lift a finger to change
that situation.

-- sai tee ee

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 27, 1985 e 7

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