'I believe we've turned the corner on agriculture

So says federal agriculture minister Chuck Strahl, an optimist by nature. And indeed there are some signs that things may be different in 2007

by BARRY WILSON

If we’re not careful, optimism may break out in agriculture this year.

For several years, the news from most sectors has been unremittingly bad and any attempt by farm leaders or media to put a more positive spin on it often led to farmer anger.

Times are tough, they would say, and making it sound as if they aren’t misrepresents our situation and reduces public sympathy for farm support. Few stories drew an angrier farmer response than those of farm success amid hard times.

There are signs this year may be different, both because of conditions and leadership. In late 2006, grain markets so long in a slump suddenly saw sharp price increases because of a severe drought in Australia that affected world supplies and a voracious demand for corn in the United States as an ethanol feed stock.

As a result, farmers started seeing futures prices they had not seen in a decade. The markets had a spring in their step. Then along comes federal agriculture minister Chuck Strahl, an optimist by nature, set on lifting the gloom.

His methods and his agenda, including a determination to end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly, make many Prairie farmers pessimistic. But Strahl insists on a happy face.

“I’m very optimistic about the economic opportunities and prospects ahead for the Canadian agriculture and agri-food sector,” he said in a late December Manitoba speech. “I believe we’ve turned a corner on agriculture. Prices are coming up, demand is on the rise (and) government programming is changing to respond to that.”

Strahl went further. “We are on the threshold, I believe, of the best years yet for agriculture and it’s a great time to be the federal agriculture minister.”

Brave words indeed and Strahl may simply have been reading from a government script or trying to convince his government colleagues that agriculture will not continue to be the $5 billion sinkhole for public dollars that it has been in recent years. Yet despite his political opponents, Strahl’s optimism sounds convincing.

Couple that with the optimistic attitude of new Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Geri Kamenz and it may be the beginning of a new agricultural attitude template.

Kamenz, an Eastern Ontario livestock and cash crop producer, took office in early December and immediately identified pessimism as an enemy of the industry. “Our industry needs to restore the strength and confidence necessary to attract young farmers,” he said after his election at a Toronto convention.

“Without that strength and confidence, the young people Ontario agriculture needs to survive and succeed will look elsewhere. We need to turn things around to restore faith in the future.”
In a later interview, he said optimism is not a substitute for solutions to real farm income problems. However, farmers have to get out of the pessimism rut to recognize that change and prosperity are possible.

“At the convention, as I looked out, a lot of the faces I looked at showed people in survival mode,” he said. “We need to change our attitude, begin believing that this is a great industry with a great future. I think we have gotten into a defeatist mode and that is a bad image of the industry to reflect to the public.”

Is a smiling farmer the next generation of agricultural images? For how long, until the next crash? BF

Barry Wilson is a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery specializing in agriculture.