Farmer's Protests

This was printed...ohh sometime in May, about the farmers on Parliament Hill--and yes I do know many of them--looking for help from the government. This is roughly what I sent, not exactly as it was printed.

The history of agriculture is that a series of advances that improve productivity and mean fewer people need to farm. Globalization is just another, it makes as much sense to try to stop it as it would have to try to stop the steam engine.

The simple fact is at the end of the day we have too many farmers trying to do the exact same thing. No matter what the Europeans or Americans are doing, there is no justification for trying to "keep up" with them because they are mostly hurting themselves. Europe is the worst offender and it’s in economic decline, trying to keep up would be suicidal. And really, whether the competition is “fair” or not is academic, you still need a plan to deal with it, and hoping the government will pay you to grow crops no one wants is just about the worst possible idea.

Farming is a technology-intensive business, more so than most, and everything they depend on is the product of globalization. Oil and semiconductors are what feed cities today. I can pretty much guarantee there is not one Canadian-built tractor at these protests, most come from Europe.

For the Farmers' Union to tell farmers they can take advantage of the benefits of global competition while expecting the government to shield them from it’s challenges is wrong and will ultimately fail. The more time and effort wasted trying to fight reality instead of adapting to it, the worse it will be when the reckoning finally comes, when(I’m just pulling out of thin air, the type of thing that can and will eventually happen)Wal-Mart starts selling cheddar from Taiwan. Many industries learned this lesson the hard way last century, ignore it at your peril.