Good afternoon. I'm very pleased to be here today. I am a farmer and therefore I have both feet firmly on the ground. I have been the President of the Fédération des agricultrices since 1999. The federation was founded in 1987.
We deal with issues related to women farmers' access to property. I'm not going to describe all the issues we're involved in but rather working conditions for farm women. I'm also going to talk about psychological distress.
Women farmers are at the very heart of farm operations. They're often responsible for the coordination of farm activities and family activities. Their work is on the ground. Farms are disappearing because of the problems being experienced by many agricultural sectors. As one of my colleagues said, the mad cow crisis, as well as the hog production crisis and the avian flu crisis, all had a significant effect on Quebec's and Canada's agricultural sector.
Economic growth is closely tied to the well-being of farm families and we are seeing a precarious financial situation for farm women. The majority of these women receive no income for the work they carry out. Most of them are partners. In Quebec, approximately 10,000 women depend on agriculture and work in that area for no salary and with no legal status. These women are not paid.
Quebec now has a new parental insurance plan, however women who are not paid cannot take parental leave. They are invisible. Furthermore, farm income, which is low compared to what the majority of Quebec workers earn, is going down and is severely penalizing families. While most other trades can set a price for their product, we, on the contrary, depend on market prices in both areas. We have no power over that situation. As I said, we are big gamblers in the agricultural sector: we are dependent on the weather and on market prices; we always have challenges to meet but we never know what the outcome will be. We need to maintain an iron will.
Most farm women work with animals seven days a week. I'm talking about a living commodity that has daily requirements and that requires highly specialized equipment. If something comes up, farm women cannot put their work off until the next day. That work has to be done the same day. I often tell city dwellers that even their own goldfish can die if they don't take care of it.
When you own 100 cows and you need to be replaced, you have to be able to call on someone who is competent, someone who has specialized knowledge and good observation skills. In other words, you need a qualified and professional individual. Furthermore, you have to pay that individual an adequate salary. If the cows or any other animal become sick, the whole farm is penalized.
Running a farm does not only involve management, but also health, safety and hygiene. Hiring extra staff is difficult and in many cases financially impossible. Pregnant women commonly continue to work up to a few hours before they give birth. They don't have a choice. I myself experienced this when my spouse was incapacitated and on sick leave. He could not work. In cases such as that one, women often do the work instead. These are, in fact, family farms. When one member of a couple cannot work, then the other must do the work.
Day care problems arise as soon as babies do. Irregular working hours, that is very early in the morning and very late in the day, do not correspond to day care hours. Furthermore, day cares are often far away from farms. Even if you wake up a child at 4:30 or 5 o'clock in the morning, day cares are not open. Women must therefore bring their children along to the barn despite the fact that fatal farm accidents most frequently involve children who are six years or younger.
Given that starting a business and having children are difficult to reconcile with no resources, many farm women who initially wanted to have several children decide to have less. Families with four or five children are not a rare sight in rural areas; I've even seen families with seven to 12 children. Even though a woman may be 45 years old, children are not a problem on a farm. We like having children. It's our land, it's our life, it's our passion.
From a psychological perspective, an unstable and unfavourable economic situation is the main cause of stress, as I told you earlier. It significantly increases family tensions that have already been exacerbated by the interlocking of professional and private lives. Women, more so than men, are affected by stress because of the many roles they play within their business. According to a study undertaken by the Coop fédérée, 59% of women fall under the high psychological distress category, compared to 49.5% of men.
The main causes of stress are decrease in income, increases in expenses, market instability, sickness, environmental duties, debt, overwork, bureaucracy, the cost and uncertainty of quotas, global competition, performance requirements, work/family balance, scarcity of skilled labour. All those factors are sources of stress.
There's another source of stress: the proximity of city people and farmers. Consumers often do not understand the requirements of the agricultural sector. Performance and specialization are a necessary and integral part of agriculture today. Agricultural producers must increase the size of their farms, even though most of them support family farms on a human scale, because of their requirements. For example, for hog production, if you want to own a certain number of hogs, you also have to own a certain number of hectares or acres in order to be able to spread your liquid manure. You therefore have to acquire more land. City people want to live in the countryside, but they are often unwilling to accept certain odours, dust, sharing the road, and the noise of equipment. It's difficult to put up with and they let us know that.
Farmers are increasingly becoming the targets of environmental criticism. In spite of their efforts into researching environmental protection measures, production costs commensurate with applicable regulations increasingly restrict their leeway. Farmers are required to comply with a number of environmental regulations, but have to finance their compliance themselves.
Farmers are beset by economic problems and increasing social pressures. The image of the farmer-polluter, and the isolation of farmers, are becoming more marked, entailing a myriad of problems that include psychological distress and domestic violence.
Frequently, because families are so close, inter-generational conflict can be added to those problems. In that sort of environment, women farmers play a buffer role and feel helpless. They are an important pillar of the farm, but lack the medical resources and psychological help adapted to their needs. Frequently, there are parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters all around them. The whole family is together in a limited space and a limited environment, and it becomes very difficult to function and maintain a positive morale.
Given that the work of women farmers must be valued and recognized because of the human and financial investment it requires in relation to the profits generated, given that societal choices must be made about the work of women to give them monetary recognition, given that women farmers should be autonomous in their roles as mothers, family members, educators and caregivers, given that women farmers must live decently and have the same kinds of day care services available in the cities, given that it makes no sense to be forced to work off the farm to survive, given that women farmers are also consumers and producers, and that Canada must continue to produce, process and distribute good quality food products while ensuring food self-sufficiency, the Fédération des agricultrices du Québec would make the following recommendations to the Canadian government.
The Fédération suggests:
- that the monetary value of work done by women farmers on the farm be recognized and included in the farm's production costs;
- that financial assistance be granted to women farmers for day care of children under five, or to provide a replacement employee during childbirth and emergencies;
- that existing tax measures be improved to facilitate transfer of the farm, as well as a respectable retirement for farming parents, so that the parents are not forced to start from scratch and are not left with nothing after giving up their farm;
- that the Fédération des agricultrices du Québec continue to receive financial support within the framework of a financial partnership for its activities aiming to enhance the profession, provide training, provide information and ensure networking in order to break the isolation of women farmers; that isolation must be broken—sometimes, women farmers go a whole month without going off the farm; they must be able to work normally;
- that women farmers who act as natural caregivers for a loved one, or for an ill or disabled person, receive financial support;
- that financial support be provided for the family farm—it is unthinkable that women farmers should be forced to work off the farm to make sure the farm survives;
- that more financial resources be allocated to support regional initiatives to prevent psychological distress, as well as support for programs to help battered women and abused children;
- that food products made in Canada be identified in order to increase Canadian agricultural revenue;
- that the benefits generated by agriculture be regularly published for Canadians; such benefits include jobs created, quality food, the vitality of rural communities and conservation of Canadian landscapes. We should be proud of our activities and of taking action, and be proud of being Canadian. There must be publicity—advertising on television. That will make people realize that we live off farming.
In conclusion, it is rare to hear farmers complaining about their fate. We are proud, independent and resourceful people. Life has taught us to find solutions to every problem. It is hard on our physical well-being, and our morale suffers as well. Women are pillars of the farm. They must take care of the family, the animals, repairs, and think about the well-being of the youngest to the eldest, both human as well as animals. It is our kingdom.
Given all that, we wonder why people want to make a living from farming. It is quite simply a passion. We must all remember that a country has no future without agriculture.