Thursday, September 20, 2012

Canadian farm subsidies more than double U.S. level


Last year Canadian farmers got 16 per cent of their revenues from the federal and provincial governments, says the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
That compares with nine per cent for farmers in the United States, one per cent in New Zealand, 60 per cent in Norway and an average of 19 per cent for members of the OECD.
As high as this might seem – a total of $252 billion – it is actually a record low.
The OECD says government policies didn’t change much, but global food prices increased. 
The agency praised Canada for ending the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly on wheat and barley exports from the Prairies, calling it “a positive step to enhance proactive price risk management by farmers.”
But the OECD said Canada’s dairy, poultry and egg sectors ''continue to receive high price support.'' That counts as a government subsidy in the OECD calculations.
One of the values of the calculations is setting the stage for global trade negotiations aimed at reducing the export of highly-subsidized foods because they become fierce competition for farmers in countries that can’t afford subsidies.
The current “Doha Round” of World Trade negotiations was aimed at helping poor countries, but after 10 years of talks, negotiations are stalled with no signs that they will revive any time soon.
Instead, Canada and many other relatively wealthy nations of the world are involved in country-to-country or regional trade negotiations, such as Canada with the European Union and the Trans-Pacific Partnership group that includes the United States, Australia and New Zealand.