In terms of agriculture, I've heard the Conservatives on this issue more than I've heard the NDP, and a look at rural polling data indicates that Conservatives are the main choice for farmers. I've also heard those who express concerns about such topics as GMOs, pesticides, etc been dismissed for being urban (read Toronto) people who think that food grows on grocery shelfs and can't relate to the difficulties of the poor farmer trying to grow some crop. (Not that I agree with that, but many people here do.)

The key to NDP agriculture policy is a concerted strategy to ensure farmers get greater control in the marketplace and ensure cost of production returns.

There's lots of single issue elements you can look at but that's what it boils down to. In Sask you have one of the most important voices on solutions to the future of farming in Nettie Weibe. I've also met other rural and farm/ranch based candidates from across the country.
I'm not sure where you are getting your impression that farm community means Conservative supporter. That's not been the experience we are having in this pre-election period. In fact quite the opposite. Most farmers know that there is little difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals on agricultural policies. The only main difference is the Conservatives keep talking about the free market when the oly thing free about the markets these days is that farmers are pretty well giving their farm products for free.
Ask farmers what they think. On most of the issues the solutions farmers are putting forward are the same as NDP policy - they just don't know it.

Sorry that's about all the time I have for today. I shouldn't even be on the computer, but this is an election where the farm community in a number of key ridings could come our way if we go to the time, expense and effort to talk about the issues directly to farmers.

It wasn't too long ago that Percy Schmieser was criticising all elected officials at all levels in regard Monsanto and the development of GMO seeds.

The NDP in Sask even let Monsanto be a corporate sponsor in schools.

A number of reporters were visiting Jack at the lake. They had a great interview and were getting ready to file their stories. Just then Jack's dog came up with his stick. Jack threw it out into the water and the dog ran out and got it.
One of the reporters noticed something was strange and asked Jack to throw out the stick again. He then told the other reporters to keep and eye on the dog.
The dog ran out and got the stick. He ran out into the deep water running along the top. He ran all the way back in, again only his feet touch the water.
The reporters tried throwing the stick out, but time after time the dog walked on water. The reporters all said it was the most amazing thing they had ever seen.
The next day the headlines all read.
"Jack's dog can't swim."
When it comes to the NDP that's exactly how Ian operates, including misrepresenting what has gone on in Saskatchewan and the comments of Percy.

Edited to add:

And Ian I'd have a little looky-loo at Green farm 'policy' it makes no sense, is based on half-truths, urban misperceptions and would impoverish Canadian farmers becuase it never gets to the root causes of the farm income crisis. It would be great for American farmers and very negative outcomes like increased food production from envrionmentally sensitive lands and regions thoughout the world

[ 01 December 2005: Message edited by: Grant I R ]

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Originally posted by rockerbiff:
So who's side are the NDP on ? Farmers or the corporations ?

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Not to contribute to the drift here, but it seems that rockerbiff went with the Greens as a result of provincial NDP governments selling out. That strikes me as interesting: those who join say, the Greens because the NDP sold out. How do these people have a guarantee that the Greens wouldn't sell out in the same situation? What would they do should the Greens sell out?

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Originally posted by Vansterdam Kid:

Why don't people like Nettie Webb, and Grant Robertson have their speechs on the NDP website addressing this issue.

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[ 01 December 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]

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Originally posted by Aristotleded24:
a look at rural polling data indicates that Conservatives are the main choice for farmers.

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I would say the main reason for this, on the prairies anyway, is that the Conservatives have usually been the first to speak on agricultural issues and have worked to keep them on the front burner. The NDP policies are better: I believe there would be more family farms and more secure small communities under an NDP government than under either a Liberal or Conservative government. But if the party doesn't communicate those policies and communicate them prominently, how are farmers to know this? They don't have time to search the NDP website. They work *a lot*. Many of them take second jobs in the oil patch or elsewhere to make ends meet. We have to bring that information to them.

a friend of mine is a pretty big farmer near Kindersely and one of the few who isn't described by my paragraph above. he tells of sitting with other farmers and hearing some guy ranting about the wheat board and how he wants the ability to "phone japan and sell my grain direct". HUH? Japan is going to buy grain 100,000 bushels at a time? seems like a stretch but lots have people have bought into this. they run farms that juggle very big numbers: $300,000 dollar implements x 4 or 5, $1,000,000 input costs, cropping decisions where being right or wrong is the difference between making it to next year and flaming out royally but in the end they see themselves as big business.

i know, i know, we sit back and see this as insane. farmers are complicit with the corporate approach that is strangling them. what irony. the same forces, "eastern bankers" big grain" that led to the development of the CCF, the wheat pools and the wheat board now have the support of the very people they are screwing. rural western canada (SASK) has gone from progressive to bourgios (sorry, no time to spell right) and neither the NDP nor nettie wiebe is going to change that in this election.

When I take a look at agriculture out west, I don't see many individual farmers per se, instead I see a lot of huge businesses that have been vertically integrating at ever-increasing rates since, what, the 1980s? The beef production business was about the last to fall, done in by mad cow in 2003.

That leaves a rather small mass of voters who are still farmers. Still, though, there are a lot of people employed in the industry: truck drivers, feedlot technicians/cowboys, accountants, secretaries, managers...to me, it's like a capitalist version of collective farming: instead of government-owned farms, they are corporate-owned, but the end result structure is pretty much the same.

Here in the east, where dairy farming is a bigger part of the agricultural economy, the movement towards larger farms has been accelerating since about 1999: the price of milk quota has been very, very high for several years, encouraging farmers to sell and retire, and their kids are either not interested or can't afford to start themselves up. If anyone does want to be a serious dairy farmer, they have to do it on a huge scale, and it's just not accessible to people who have just finished a degree at an agricultural college. So: they end up as workers, instead of owners, and at low wages. Yay for our corporate system.

I'd like to see the NDP address this supreme irony of capitalism.

[ 01 December 2005: Message edited by: brebis noire ]

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A report by two Saskatoon economists says the upcoming round of World Trade Organization talks could spell the beginning of the end for the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly over the export of wheat and barley.

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I don't see many individual farmers per se, instead I see a lot of huge businesses

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How fitting that some Saskatoon economists have recently warned about the Wheat Board possibly facing imminent dismantling:

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Originally posted by Aristotleded24:
Wheat Board possibly facing imminent dismantling:

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Hello to our Farming Brothers and Sisters!! We want to open up a dialog for those interested in Rural and Farming issues. We have heard many speak of land right issues, concern for the over-regulation and the destruction of family farms by corporate farming - we must take a new approach.

We want you to know that Tasha and the NDP want to hear your voices, to understand your concerns.

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Many of the farmers I met when we had our farm were trapped by the debt they had had incurred in the seventies. Back then, they were encouraged to buy into big machinery, the banks had plenty of money to loan them and they borrowed and then the interest rates went to 20%. I knew farmers that twenty years later still owed the banks what their farm was worth and had a job off the farm to keep it going.

I see the destruction of farming as a natural result of how the land was settled in the first place and by that I mean it was done to displace the First Nations peoples. The way it was done led to isolation and that resulted in people leaving the farms.

I would like to see us envision another future for farming that would look to smaller scale production and less reliance on fossil fuels in the growing and transportation of food.

I am from, if not of, Niagara West-Glanbrook where the Tory won by sucking up to Christian HERITAGE for christ's sake. After driving from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie and back again I can say that, for what it's worth (not much) CHP is WINNING THE SIGN WAR, or at least in a dead heat with the grotesque Dean Allison. The ONLY Liberal signs I've seen (forget the NDP) have been on big new homes near the QEW.

And what is these guys' big issue? SSM. It's sick. Apparently Dutch Reform pushes this issue hard, I'm not sure if that's the affiliation of a local whose name you may have heard before, Saint Tristan Emmanuel of Defend Marriage and no I will not provide a link.

We elected an NDPer provincially in 1990, Ron Hansen. He really sucked. Even on SSM (it was apparently 'distracting from the economy' so he voted against it in that free vote you may have forgotten). The word 'agribusiness' does not resonate around here, to put it nicely.

It's not that simple, however. It's a matter of transportation issues (the costs have severely escalated thanks to the abandoning of the rail lines and the small elevators evaporating, leaving farmers to transport their grain much further) and international forces of globalization have had a severe impact. Just as labour markets in other countries have been exploited for their labour to produce manufactured goods and textiles, the climate and severely relaxed environmental regulations have also allowed rapid development of agriculture in other developing nations that is pulling the food supply of Canada away from our backyard and into international markets. I've been told Canada is a net importer of wheat, if you can believe it.

Remember, it was the farmers here in Saskatchewan and the rest of the prairies who were particularly concerned about GMO Wheat. Perhaps not on the same environmental wavelength as others, but certainly because they are intelligent enough to notice the demand for GMO wheat is miniscule and that markets such as the EU certainly don't want the product.

A wise friend who also posts here on rabble has reminded me about what we believe in self-determination for all peoples, and the same should be respected for our agriculture community: if there is a desire to make things happen there, we should support them. We (I say urban people, like myself) should not impose our view on what we want agriculture to look like. We have to be engaged in dialog with rural people as to what they want their future to look like.