AUGUST 2, 2000
ALBERTA NET FARM INCOME AT DEPRESSION LEVELS
BECAUSE OF DEREGULATION
BENALTO, Alta.--According to current Stats. Canada figures, an average Alberta farm in 1999 enjoyed a realized net farm income of just $3,090. (Realized net farm income is not the same as profit. It is calculated before any allowance is made for wages for farm family labour, management, or return on investment.) This continues a trend which began in the mid-1980s with the loss of the Crow Rate and other Federal and Provincial deregulation initiatives.
Sources: Stats. Can. publications: 21-603E & 93-348
"You can't dispute the numbers: the loss of the Crow Rate and other deregulation initiatives of the 1980s and '90s have devastated farmers in Alberta and across Canada. Federal and Provincial politicians told us the end of the Crow would 'free' farmers and start a new era of prosperity based on a more efficient transportation system," observed Ken Larsen, a west-central Alberta Farmer. He continued: "In reality, all that has happened is that higher freight rates drove down grain prices and incomes. To add insult to injury, deregulation has forced our co-operative grain handling organizations to near bankruptcy to satisfy railways. Farmers are paying more for much less service."
For 40 years (1942-1982) Alberta's per-farm realized net farm income (adjusted to 1999 dollars) has remained relatively stable: oscillating between $10,000 and $27,000 per farm. By the mid-1980s, however, net farm incomes fell to levels not seen since the 1930s and remain there today. Over the last 15 years, Alberta's net farm incomes have found a new equilibrium, oscillating between zero and $17,000 per farm. "Most of the lost net income is now going to the railways in higher freight rates and to the other increased transportation costs farmers now face," said Larsen.
"The fact that realized net farm income for the average Alberta farm is below levels seen in 1935,'36, '37, '38, and '39 is especially ominous, given Alberta farmers' investments in diversification. Alberta farmers have expanded, switched to high-value crops, and adopted new technologies and management systems. The market has rewarded all this innovation, investment, and adaptation by paying us the lowest net incomes since the great depression. Charting the numbers clearly shows that deregulation has been a disaster for Alberta farmers," concluded Larsen.
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For More Information:
Ken Larsen: (403) 746-5792
Darrin Qualman, Exec. Sec.: (306) 652-9465