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L E T T E R S
The high cost of "cheap" foodIt appears that Environment Canada's "one-tonne challenge" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as promoted by comedian Rick Mercer on television, may be easier to meet than one might think. Just adjust where your dinner came from.Thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization and "free" global trade, we have a tremendously "cheap" food supply that allows us to dine in a different country almost every night. But when you look at the hidden costs associated with dining on foreign "delicacies," the price may become rather prohibitive. In February, Cameron Smith wrote in the Toronto Star that in an average meal with broccoli, grapes and salad greens from California, potatoes from Prince Edward Island, tomatoes from Mexico, beef from Alberta, wine from France and coffee from Costa Rica, the food would have travelled a total of 27,048 kilometres and its transportation would have produced 4.5 tonnes of CO2. If the broccoli, salad greens and tomato were from the Holland Marsh, wine and grapes from the Niagara, the potatoes from western Ontario and the beef from eastern Ontario, the food would have travelled only 4,615 kilometres and only 439 kilograms of CO2 would have been produced. If we extrapolate Cameron Smith's numbers, the "real" cost of a dinner a la CO2 would have to include a substantial surcharge depending on the current cost placed on each ton of CO2 emitted. At current trading prices, CO2 emissions credits are trading at $11 per tonne. Looks like it is time to check the place-of-origin labels on our groceries and we will all be able to meet Rick Mercer's challenge.
Nils Semmler Food grains and Canadian contentRegarding the Behind The Lines in the February Better Farming, it's great to see Canada's foreign aid record raised in the context of the Asian Tsunami and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB).The issue of the "Canadian content rule" (currently 90 per cent) must be viewed not in terms of the historical context of its origin but, instead, the current economic reality. When the 90 per cent rule was put in effect (circa 1950), the tonnage of grain sold was important to Canadian farm income totals. Today, the key factor is market price, and that price is set in the U.S. market. The Canadian farm gate price would not be affected by reducing the requirement to 50 per cent. The CFGB (like other aid groups) is simply asking for more flexibility to make their donated resources more efficient. To date, the Canadian government has been cautious in its response. Even though the real market effect of the proposed change would be nil, the potential for political manipulation is significant. Until farm groups like the CFA and national grain commodity organizations offer clear support for the change, government may remain unwilling to take the political risk. The reality is that aid will continue to come from mainly Canadian sources. The 50 per cent rule would be a positive step with no real negative connotations for Canadian farmers, I salute Bob Friesen, CFA president, for his sensitive and sensible stand on the issue. I hope that the CFA member organizations will support his view. Gordon Garlough Where are price supports?Four years ago, eastern Ontario farmers staged large rallies in Ottawa. We got $500 million from the federal government. At the same time, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), the Ontario Corn Producers Association and the Ontario Soybean Growers promised to get together and develop a price support program using the Quebec farm program as a model. They dropped the ball completely.We started a petition in our area serving notice to the OFA stating that farmers will terminate their memberships until a program equal to the Quebec program is implemented. We are also looking at holding back our municipal taxes, like we did in the 1960s. (The tax money will be held in trust.) Farms and farm-related businesses in our township alone contribute $6 million in municipal taxes. Just imagine the economic impact of this plan province-wide. Maybe the government and the public will realize the importance of agriculture in Ontario. Dan Harkin
Morewood A little "green" for "greenbelted" farmers?Mike Mulhern's cover story in February's Better Farming sums up the entire problem and reveals the essence of Premier Dalton McGuinty's approach to greenbelt legislation. Canada's Constitution doesn't allow for compensation for downzoning.The greenbelt cries out for a new zoning classification based on environmental versus agricultural zoning. This new zoning could have a property credit embedded in its official plan designation, thereby addressing the present inequity in the Constitution. The new zoning, on the day of its imposition, would quantify the difference in market value between the agvironmental land and the same (raw) land if it were slated for development. The provincial treasury would then pay to the affected farm operator taxable income equal to the difference in these values, multiplied by a very modest interest rate. Future base difference values would operate in lock step with the property's assessed value, rising and decreasing with the market. An on-going approach, based on what is outlined above, absolutely guarantees sustainability, which is what the greenbelts are ostensibly intended to do. It provides modest recognition of the farmer's contribution to Ontario's environmental well-being. If you take money from your farm company for a personal automobile, you must pay the company back, including interest, with after-tax dollars. Does it not follow that if the rest of Ontario exacts such an enormous benefit from individual farmers, it should likewise recognize and account for this benefit? Or was Mr. McGuinty just being his rhetorical old self when he said, "It will help us build the kind of Ontario we all want to live in and that we can be proud to leave to our children." I wonder if he would still say that if it were his children who were trapped on the plantation.
Terence Rothwell
Mount Forest Write to usWe welcome the views of all readers. To be published letters, must be written exclusively to Better Farming and include the writer's name, address and telephone number to allow for verification. Letters may be edited, condensed or rejected. Due to space limitations, we suggest a length of less than 300 words.
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