national
farmers union
Implementing the Estey Report will create a permanent farm income crisis: this was the message that the NFU brought to the Ministers of Agriculture meeting in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan today.
Approximately 300 NFU members and other farmers protested outside Prince Albert's Marlborough Inn where federal and provincial Ministers are meeting. The farmers carried placards calling on the government to scrap the Estey Report on grain transportation and to instead implement policies and programs that will alleviate the current farm income crisis. Referring to Estey's recommendation to end the grain freight rate cap, hundreds of helium-filled balloons, carried by protesters and tied to trucks outside the hotel, proclaimed: "uncapped freight rates rise."
Although Minister of Agriculture Lyle Vanclief did not address the assembled farmers during the demonstration, he did meet with NFU officials later. NFU President Cory Ollikka told Vanclief that the current farm income crisis is like a wildfire: racing across the prairies and wiping out farms. Implementing Estey's recommendations would be like pouring gasoline on that fire.
Ollikka told Vanclief that Estey's recommendations would exacerbate the income crisis by raising freight rates, increasing trucking costs to farmers, and increasing road maintenance costs which farmers and other Canadians must pay through their taxes. The NFU called on Vanclief to adjust grain freight rates downward to take into account transportation system productivity gains. Such a move would lead to an immediate $5/ tonne freight rate decrease and save western farmers and average of $5,000 each per year.
At the request of Transport Minister David Collenette, Arthur Kroeger is holding weekly meetings in Winnipeg aimed at implementing Willard Estey's 15 recommendations.
Adjusted for inflation, per farm realized net income is at its lowest level since the 1930s. Farm debt increased 10% last year to a record $33 billion.
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