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BEHINDTHELINESThis month’s cover story about the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program (CAIS) is timely because federal and provincial agriculture ministers are meeting this very month to discuss the controversial farm support program. Ironically, the story evolved from a conversation between a Better Farming editor and a farmer at the Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show more than a year ago. The farmer believed that Benchmark Per Unit (BPU) calculations were specifically being used to “ratchet down” returns to producers. That conversation set Better Farming off on a quest to obtain the figures used to calculate Benchmark BPUs. It was a long journey. CAIS payments are based upon historical production and income levels on your farm. BPUs come into play if your farm has undergone “structural change” – that is, if it is expanding, contracting, or you are a beginning farmer without a CAIS history. BPUs are industry averages used to calculate what a farmer’s margin would be if he had a stable farming history. Better Farming sought access to these figures by making a request under the province’s Access to Information laws. This involves making a request for specific documents to an officer with a specific ministry of the provincial government. Accessing documents this way can, and did, take several months. We never did come to the same conclusion that the farmer did -- that BPUs are used to “ratchet down” incomes to farmers. Instead, we found that while most farmers in the agricultural community agree that CAIS doesn’t work, they don’t really understood how it works. Along the way an important issue came up. Should we publish the BPU figures? The Ontario Federation of Agriculture told us that its researchers had been denied access to the BPUs because this might cause trade problems. While CAIS is considered to be legal under trade rules because it is a “whole farm program,” the BPUs refer to specific industry sectors and might be considered to be a cost of production. As such, they could be used against a commodity’s producers in a trade action. It was pointed out that when the pork industry faced an anti-dumping challenge from the United States several years ago, the swine industry newsletter Pork News & Views, published in our sister publication Better Pork, was pulled out by the opposition’s trade lawyers. Better Farming’s editors considered this carefully and decided to publish the BPUs for a number of common commodities anyway. First, by law, the BPUs are available to anyone who can be bothered to put pen to paper and wait several months for an answer. The forms to make a freedom of information request are available on the Internet. One does not have to be a Canadian citizen or an Ontario resident to make such a request. It is worth nothing that the American anti-dumping challenge failed. Second, we think that is virtually impossible in this modern world to keep numbers that are commonly used a secret. And if they are important to understanding how government programs related to agriculture work, why should they be?BF
Robert Irwin & Don Stoneman
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