Since 1993, farm debt has been growing inexorably across Canada, and nowhere more than in Ontario, making debt servicing one of the fastest growing farm costs
by BARRY WILSON
In the darkest days of the early 1980s, when double-digit interest rates were the norm and grain prices were low because of the export subsidy wars, Ontario farmers carried a debt load of $5 billion.
Interest rates of 20 per cent and above drove many to bankruptcy or foreclosure in the first half of the decade. Resistance groups grew up to surround farms on foreclosure day to protect assets.