Mr. Speaker, farm families in Canada are in crisis. Since my question to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food last month on the farm crisis on the prairies net farm income has dropped not to 40% of last year's income but to 70% of last year's income. This is a crisis by any description. That is one particular description of a crisis.
We also have the lowest net farm income in western Canada since the great depression of 1929 and the 1930s. At $3,400 per farm this year that is the lowest per farm net income recorded since Statistics Canada began keeping records in 1926. The agriculture and food industry in Saskatchewan is related to over 40% of all jobs in the province. We have a very significant crisis as well as a social crisis.
Whenever farmers' incomes fell in the previous decade the media and the Liberals implied that farmers were to blame because they insisted on growing wheat for a world that already had enough. The implicit message was to diversify or perish. What have the farmers done? The irony is that today in Saskatchewan farmers are growing peas, lentils, sunflowers, spices and raising llamas, wild boars and even fainting goats. We now face the lowest farm income levels in history.
As well agricultural exports from 1989 to 1997 doubled in Canada. Yet net farm income declined over that period. Machinery operation costs increased 21% over the past five years. Fertilizer costs increased 57%. Farm chemical costs increased 63%. Liberal government user fees increased by $138 million as a result of the privatizations of the agricultural industry.
We have seen U.S. subsidies for wheat at $2.68 U.S. per bushel when the price of wheat right now is $2.46 U.S. per bushel. In addition to that subsidy we have also seen an increase of $6 billion by the U.S. treasury for its farmers, which now totals about $22 billion Canadian. That is what U.S. farmers are getting from their government. Canada is getting zippo as far as subsidies are concerned. Europeans are providing $5.35 U.S. a bushel subsidy for their wheat producers.
The Liberal government betrayed and abandoned farmers by doing away with the Crow rate. Other countries in Europe and the States backed their farmers with their treasuries. I call on the government to commit to a national agricultural policy which will stand up and protect farmers in this very serious condition. I call upon the Government of Canada to establish an emergency farm aid program around the national agricultural policy which I would like to see it announce in the House of Commons tonight.