1968—Page 6

"marks of William Beeching to a re-

The following are the opening re-.

cent conference on agriculture of the
Communist Party. Because of the
nature of the questions raised and the
approach taken to the serious prob-
lems of Canadian agriculture we feel
this speech will be of interest to

Tribune readers in all parts of the

country.

This Fall’s bad harvest has brought
to a head a number of problems mat-
uring in the Canadian agricultural
economy. It has resulted in a sharp
crisis in the wheat economy, exposing
the shakiness of the entire agricultural
economy, and deepening that crisis.

We have before us this week-end the
task of preparing an emergency farm
program. This means we have to take
a look at an over-all agricultural pol-
icy, because the emergency farm pro-
gram, while dealing with the specifics
of the current crisis, must also accu-
rately reflect all of the problems within
agriculture—problems which have ex-
isted for decades.

We cannot confine this week-end
conference to program alone, but also
must consider how to generate activity
around that program. The farm strug-
gle is part of the class struggle. Its
main problems rise out of the main
contradiction in capitalism: the private
ownership of the means of production
in conflict with the social nature of
production. This conference must help
us give a boost to the class struggle,
and strengthen anti-monopoly unity
thereby.

We should ask ourselves: what are
the origins of our indecision and lack
of confidence in this past period? Is it
a problem of leadership? It is unclar-
ity? Is it because we have preferred to
go along with things, partly because of
the coldwar’ isolation, and partly be-
cause we think that is a way to unity?
Have we had a problem of developing
criticism of policies in the mass organ-
izations of the people, and in the left?

It is a fact that there are divisions
about emphasis and considerations as

-to what mass organizations in which
we should work. Some comrades work
in the co-ops, some in the Pools, and
‘some in the farm unions.

‘But, in all-cases, we do not reflect
what is new in the current situation.
Communism isn’t yet the popularly
accepted outlook. Nonetheless, what

’ Communists have tO Say is listened to
with attention, and has an effect. We

often remain sifent when we ought to

be speaking up. We must consider that
the program which we will introduce
is important and meaningful to the

struggles of Canadian farmers against
monopoly.

To indicate the kind of initiative we
need today, let’s go back a few years
to the early Thirties, when conditions
were, of cours®, much different. The
important thing is that a few farm
comrades, heré and there, worked out
ways to develop action. They were sure
their actions were important and need-
ed. Some comrades and friends got to-
gether to discuss how to stop a sher-
iff’s sale, on a farmstead. They had no

. experience, and didn’t know what to
Goss:

The mother Of one of the young
comrades said something like this,
“Why don’t we all go to the sale and
sing Oh! Canada!, and just drown out
the auctioneer?” They did—and the
movement against sheriffs sales grew.

It is out of those early struggles that

we got medicare, a grain board, and.

many other reforms,

. 2
Susan

“mean an enormous lea:

.. two .decades . has.
greater than in o

The thing is that we are just as
important a factor in today’s farm
struggles.

E. Varga, in his -book “Politico-
Economic Problems of Capitalism”
says there has been a permanent crisis
in agriculture in the capitalist coun-
tries ever since the end of World War
I. Besides indicating that the farmers
badly needed socialism, it indicates the
over all problem of agriculture in the
modern capitalist state, and the wide
potential to bring the farmers into the

- anti-monopoly coalition.

Read today’s newspapers. There are
the headlines: '“‘Hogs: two year low” or
“It’s boom or bust in potato land,” and
so on. There is an exodus of. farmers
out of the dairy industry greater than
out of any other segment of agricul-
ture. Between 1951-61, 32 percent of
the farmers in the dairy industry went
out, and between 1961-66, another 25
percent went out. Today, one-third of

all dairy income is from government
Subsidies.

Newspapers and periodicals, experts

and government officials in their state-
ments express confusion, aimlessness,

hopelessness and concern about wheat

markets, damp grain, diversification
and price.

A. M. Runciman, President of the
United Grain Growers Limited, in an

address: to the Annual conference of

the Alberta Department of Agriculture,
in Edmonton, on October 9, 1968, said

this:
“We have a habit in Canada, and a

very bad habit, of ignoring problems
until they reach the point of crisis . . .

-I say this because I think the Western’

Canadian wheat grower is on the brink
of the greatest re-adjustment period he
has faced since the 1930’s. Clearly, the
honeymoon is over .. . The only hope
an exporter like Canada has for large
volume sales is that a. world-wide
drought—escaping Canada, of course—
will occur, and another windfall such
as the Russian sale of September 1963,
will reappear. Well, nothing is less-
dependable than the weather and we
might have a long wait.”

The fact is that there is not an agri-

cultural policy to assist the farmers,

and if we are to get one it will have to
be fought for by the farmers them-
selves. The government’s main policy
is one of assisting Canadian and for-
eign monopolies. :

What are some of
underlying policy needs?

Despite the fact that productivity in
agriculture has increased more and
faster than in manufacturing, the ben-
efits have not accrued to the farmers,

the questions

Productivity 1958 1967
Agriculture 188 320
Manufacturing 140 194

This does not mean that the com-
position of fixed capital is higher jn.
agriculture than in industry—in fact,
the reverse is the case—but it does

P in technology,

the main results of which have benefit-

ted monopoly.

We often say the rich get richer and
the poor get poorer. Well, the Vth
Annual Report of the Economic Coun-
cil of Canada

c ; finds a, you might say,
non-antagonistic” or more “indirect?

way of saying the same thing. The
Report says:

“This rate of increase of labor pro-
ductivity in ariculture over the past
been considerably -
ther sectors of the
Ye aA Rane me

tr;

economy. However, average farm © its
comes have remained significantly I Us
er than average non-farm incomes = = ™

That’s pretty plain. Then the R&P
says: Y a&

“The second reason is the “PH ey
cost squeeze affecting farmers. oe ols
slow growth in demand for farm Pe Ot
ducts, prices of farm products hav &
increased much less than pee tb
other goods and services over thé he r
two decades. This has meant that™) €
prices of the goods sold by farm
have, on average, increased less eee Sy
ly than.the prices of goods put!

by farmers. And this has meanth i;
turn, that part of the income-gem te.
ing benefits arising from the rapid ait)
of growth of agricultural producti ;
has been shifted from the farm sed

to other sectors of the economy: a

It certainly leaves out the ae
role of monopoly and its exploit@
of agriculture, but it confirms

results.

Another factor for us to look a
that productivity in Canadian agtil

ture has been lower than in U.
agriculture.

According to the Economic Cor
cil’s report, on the average, Call
farmers produce 25 percent less tH!
U.S. farmers. In terms of gross val
of production, the disparity is about
percent. Government policies influe”
this result, although there are 0
factors as well, such as climate. —

Trade Liberalization and Agricultut
a book published by the University °
Toronto Press, says that Canad
farmers are at an absolute disadva™
tage in fruit, vegetables, sugar, P® t
try, meat, butter, lamb, wool—and tha?
we import from the United States,
vegetables, four times what we export
According to this book, Canada nit
no discernible advantage in the marke
- in tobacco, grain corn, fresh beef aM!
pork, eggs, soybeans and milk.
Between 1950 and 1954, Canadial —
farmers exported $290 million of f
products to the United States, wh!

ion, and imports —
se to $490 million.

et. place. That ;
written in the hey day

Op ye ercent .
below the last P year, ran 31 pe

é 5-year average. World —
exports, in the same period, are up 40
percent, and the United States declared
its aim of increasing jts exports t0 ~
750 million bushels; a goal it achieved.

This is in line with the policies of
the Johnson Administration. The John.

“We have a habit in Canad

and the very bad habit
ignoring problems until t
Feach the point of crisis.

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