Good afternoon. I'm Ed Sagan.
I farm in the Melville area. That's about 400 kilometres from here. We're on a grain farm and also a crop farm.
This hearing gives me an opportunity to give input on the problems of agriculture for the young farmers of today.
The debt load of farming today is higher than total income. In today's society, a young person can get an education or trade of his choice for between $50,000 to $100,000, depending on the work.
Young farmers always seem to need financial help. To start farming today you need at least $1 million, or some 15-year-old equipment and an outside job to subsidize your income. In 1974, wheat was selling for $2.74 a bushel; diesel fuel was selling for about 8¢ a litre. Today, one bushel of wheat equals one gallon, or four and a half litres, of fuel.
Our forefathers came to Canada because of the feudal system in Europe. The barons controlled the system. In Canada, farmers are controlled by multinationals and the insane farm policies of our government. Deregulation in agricultural policy imposed that. It's getting harder and harder to farm.
The task force on agriculture, in 1980, indicated that two-thirds of farmers had to leave the industry to be more efficient. Well, that's what happened. Today we have superior landlords with offshore investments from the United States and China acquiring landholdings. We also have grain companies leasing lands that young farmers should be farming.
Our farm consists of two families of seven children. We have a total of 2,400 acres of grain farm that should be transferred to our children. None of our children are taking over this farm. Why?
Our farm has been in the Sagan family since 1905--a hundred and five years. I'm a third-generation farmer. I have discouraged our children from farming. I have demanded that our children get an excellent education or trades of their choice so they will not get financial abuse in farming, as has happened to me. There will not be a fourth-generation Sagan family farm carrying on the business.
StatsCanada, over 25 years, indicates that input supplies have captured 99.6% of the wealth generated on our farms. Farmers have produced and sold an average of $388 per acre per year, but farmers have been forced to make do with $1.45 an acre in the form of net income. The corporations that produce farm input and services--fertilizer, chemicals, banks--captured $386, the share of the wealth flowing to the farmers' inputs, and the corporations picked up 266%. How did we get there?
Very importantly for the people who know anything about agriculture, we lost the Crow rate. It was a big fight in western Canada. We used to pay 20¢ a bushel to export our grain into the international market. Today we are paying $1.50.
There has been the elimination of a two-price wheat system.
To put our crops in at spring, fertilizers and seeds have also placed a very big burden on our operations. Today a farmer and his wife have to work off the farm just to pay for the power, telephone, and gas bill. No other segment of society does that.
Many of our problems were created by Canadian agriculture food policies that can be traced to senior bureaucrats' understanding of the fundamental difference between competition and competitiveness.
Bigness and growth is enhanced by mergers of corporations, takeovers, and reduction in the number of players. For example, ten years ago there were more than 20 chemical companies. Today, we have six chemical companies and interlocking directorships.
Mergers and acquisitions have reduced competition in every agriculture business. Farmers have fewer companies.... IH has absorbed tractor companies like Ford, Case, IH, and Steiger. Few companies sell our grains. Viterra is an amalgamation of SaskPool, United Grain Growers, and Manitoba Pool. Monsanto, Syngenta Seeds, and Bayer have bought up dozens of seed companies, concentrating and creating controls. Agrium, CF Industries, and Terra Industries are also concentrated in fertilizer.
The farmers' right to save the seed and reuse seed are under sustained attack, ever since the 1978 convention to cut funding for research and variety development and turn the seed section over to private grain companies. Recent moves in Canadian food inspection have changed the way seed varieties are registered. All of this diminishes the farm's ability to save and reuse the seed--very important for you guys.
In conclusion, the Canadian Wheat Board, which sells our grain, is the only organization that returns profits to our farmers, yet the Tories, in their wisdom, the ones in government, want to destroy it, and why they want to be in the government, I don't know.
That's it.