There’s an old saying that still holds true today. It is often said about someone who was very greedy that they take “both ends and the middle!” That person didn’t care about the person that came after, or about next week, next year, or 10 years in the future.
Some politicians take over a province or country with a balanced budget or even a surplus from the previous government who was saving for increased healthcare costs or to fight off an oncoming warming of our planet.
They may have promised “good times” that were based on using up that surplus for a few years. An election or two later, they would leave behind a province or country with a huge deficit and a planet in worse shape. Sometimes that spendthrift government may have sold off a railroad, airplane company, natural resources, and future development to make the books look better than they really were! Often those politicians would sell off assets to their friends at bargain-basement prices with hopes of getting a nice job after they might be defeated.
There are several “think tanks” in Canada with strong political affiliation to one party or another. Most of those “think tanks” employ economists that deal in “short-term economics” which may give a political party ideas to return very fast financial gains to citizens, but will leave the country a decade of problems to gain back “future wealth.”
A common target for those “think-tanks” is Canada’s supply management system of marketing dairy, chicken and eggs. The supply management system is based on safe and steady delivery of dairy, chicken, and eggs to consumers year after year. A cost of production (COP) formula is used which ensures that the most efficient farmers remain, while farmers with a COP higher than the most efficient 50 per cent will have to find a different job!
There are frequently foods that are less expensive when another country “dumps” overproduction onto the world market until their surplus is gone. Then their price returns to a higher price than Canada’s, but by then some of Canada’s very efficient farmers may have already quit. The most efficient farms plan and build very efficient and expensive facilities that can take many years just to plan and sometimes generations to pay for! Other countries which use a “free market” system of dairy, chicken, and egg marketing will “buy up” surplus food and either dump it at world price.
That is what Canada did before some smart politicians and farmers came up with the “supply management system” of marketing. Those farmers were allotted a quota to assure a steady and reliable supply. When a farmer retires, that quota may be sold to other farmers who may want to expand. About 20 years ago, farmers capped the price of quota so young farmers could get started.
Farmers with government, consumer, processor, and retailers watching continue to change and improve the supply management system yearly! Countries that do not use that system for marketing different foods continue to buy up surplus, pay farmers not to plant acres, and have whole dairy herd buyout programs to slaughter dairy herds when too much surplus exists. The U.S. alone had a 1.3 trillion dollar farm bill approved recently.
Sometimes a country announces that it will bring manufacturing back to the country after it has been moved to a country that has a much lower wage scale for workers. Last week, I sat waiting for Jeannie to return from a medical appointment, and I counted 420 vehicles. Less than seven per cent were designed and built in North America. Six of that seven per cent were trucks. Six were vans. Two were sports cars. Four of the cars that had a North American name were designed and manufactured in China! When I look around the office, the computers, printers, cell phones, and other electric devices are all made offshore! On the farm, two of the most recent tractors were made offshore. The self propelled forage harvester was made in Europe. Our televisions are built in Asia. If we continue to export our natural resources, what will we have left to live from?
Maybe it’s time to rethink taking both ends and the middle?
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
