As a taxpayer, I'm thinking my politicians have spent $74 billion in farm subsidies over the last 30 years and I'm left with little more than a pig in a poke.
An
analysis by Bob Seguin, former chief policy advisor to the Ontario Ministry of
Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and now head of the George Morris Centre,
concludes that there is scant evidence that the subsidies did much to change
anything.
In
fact, sectors of the farming economy that got little or nothing – eg.
greenhouse owners, vegetable and flower producers – have fared just as well as
the rest.
There
has been a trend to fewer and larger farms, but Seguin says that is also the
result of management skills and improved technologies.
In
fact, despite all the money spent, there have been no studies to determine how
farmers spent or invested the money.
Seguin
says that leaves the public to wonder “how these actually benefited the farm
operations over time to reduce risks/improve viability” because those questions
“were rarely asked of the
recipients.”
“So
it is very difficult to know precisely what the benefits have been –to
individuals, commodity groups, regions or to the overall agri-food sector over
time, or over any program,” Seguin writes in a report posted on the George
Morris Centre website this week.
“The
lack of such funding did not limit competitiveness and innovation for those
farmers,
or commodity groups, unable to always obtain such payments.,” Seguin says,
citing the greenhouse, vegetable and flower growers.
‘Other
examples of successful farm operations/commodity groups where limited public
payments to address risk management needs/income supports did not limit that
group’s competitive/innovation success can be found across Canada,” Seguin
says.
His
comments come in the midst of federal-provincial negotiations for policies and
funding for the next five years.
