A/42/427
English
Page 134
The problem in agriculture is not faceless. I as a farmer am a potential victim of the system that we now operate under. Why are approximately a quarter of Canadian farmers facing the immediate prospects of farm bankruptcy? It is directly related to the general concept of a cheap food policy that has constituted a cornerstone of federal agricultural policy since the beginning of settlement.
We regard the current cheap food policy as a form of economic violence that is contributing towards soil exploitation and the growing impersonal relationship between farmers and the soil for economic survival. It is a policy of industrialization that can lead only towards disaster economically––for us as farmers, and environmentally for us all as Canadians and as world citizens.
Wayne Easter
President, National Farmers'
Union
WCED Public Hearing
Ottawa, 26/27 May 1986
and so forth. Policies that vary from region to region are needed to reflect different regional needs, encouraging farmers to adopt practices that are ecologically sustainable in their own areas.
49. The importance of regional policy differentiation can be easily illustrated:
- Hill areas may require incentive prices for fruits and subsidized supplies of foodgrains to induce farmers to shift towards horticulture, which may be ecologically more sustainable.
- In areas prone to wind and water erosion, public intervention through subsidies and other measures should encourage farmers to conserve soil and water.
- Farmers on land over recharge areas for underground aquifers subject to nitrate pollution might be given incentives to maintain soil fertility and increase productivity by means other than nitrate fertilizers.
50. The third defect in government intervention lies in incentive structures. In industrialized countries, overprotection of farmers and overproduction represent the accumulated result of tax reliefs, direct subsidies, and price controls. Such policies are now studded with contradictions that encourage the degradation of the agricultural resource base and, in the long run, do more harm than good to the agricultural industry. Some governments now recognize this and are making efforts to change the focus of the subsidies from production growth to conservation.
51. On the other hand. in most developing countries the incentive structure is weak. Market interventions are often ineffective for lack of a organizational structure for
