SWIFT CURRENT, Sask."In terms of farm income, 1998 was a disaster year, 99 wasnt any better, and with $4.85 canola and $3.25 wheat, 2000 looks just as bad", said NFU Saskatchewan Board member Stewart Wells. He continued: "If federal projections are correct, not only will the situation not improve for the next three years, but 2001 will be the worst year yet with Saskatchewan realized net farm income falling to negative 318 million dollars".

"This is market failure. Despite tight grain stocksa 64-day supply of grain in the worldprices are near record lows. The current crisis cannot be explained by supply and demand: this market has ceased to respond to supply and demand. With over six billion people in the world and increasingly unstable weather, is a sixty-four-day supply of food so burdensome that we have to bankrupt farmers to try and force them to produce less"? asked Wells.

Wells concluded: "The worst part is that governments have no analysis of what is causing the crisis or what actions might solve it. The Canadian government points to oversupply and EU subsidies as the causeboth those arguments have been thoroughly discredited. Some provincial politicians point to high taxes on inputs when the only taxes on farm chemicals are the taxes on the corporate profits; and the only taxes on fertilizer are those on profit and on the natural gas used to make it. The NFU has been proposing solutions. However, it is very difficult to move toward solutions when the people youre talking to dont even understand the causes of the problem".

Attached are Stewart Wells remarks on the farm income crisis which will be read at the Focus 2000 farm rally in Regina tonight at 6:00 PM

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For More Information:

Stewart Wells, NFU Sask. Board member: (306) 773-6852

Darrin Qualman, Executive Secretary: (306) 652-9465