Few politicians would agree that is a good strategy, but that may well be the outcome of the federal government’s approach to the agri-food sector. If adopted globally, Canada’s playbook would result in wealthier farmers but it would come at the expense of consumers. This is what it looks like from my farm.

1. Undermine public agricultural research

Reducing support for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, particularly its crop research programs, would quickly erode Canada’s global competitiveness. For example, Canada’s wheat breeding program is consistently ranked among the top three worldwide, yet it continues to lose funding. If public plant breeding is weakened or discontinued, as announced recently, farmers will face higher seed costs, reduced margins, and declining incentives to grow wheat — potentially increasing reliance on government business risk management programs. With a proven return on investment of approximately 30:1, cutting this research is a false economy. It has been proven time and again that private multinationals cannot supply the same value as AAFC. Less output inevitably leads to higher prices.

2. Continue underfunding transformational innovation

AAFC has developed a globally unique technology that enables non-legume crops to fix their own nitrogen. This innovation has the potential to dramatically improve farm profitability, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 85 per cent on grain farms, and reshape global agriculture. In Western Canada alone, it could increase farm profits by $3 billion annually, generate $1.5 billion per year in domestic royalties, and an additional $8 billion from the United States market. Despite this potential, the program remains underfunded, poorly resourced, and lacks a strategic commercialization plan. This gap risks reinforcing Canada’s reputation for inventing but failing to capture the economic benefits of global adoption. Reduced innovation leads directly to higher prices.

3. Allow further foreign control of the value chain

Permitting increased foreign ownership of upstream and downstream agricultural sectors will extract profits from Canada and concentrate market power. While this may raise prices, it will likely reduce farm incomes as input costs are controlled by monopolies and production incentives decline. Over time, this may also suppress output — again resulting in higher prices, but the profits will go elsewhere.

4. Neglect climate and sustainability goals

Failing to pursue net zero or net positive goals by 2050 represents a significant missed opportunity. There is a clear pathway to increasing farm profitability while improving environmental outcomes. No-regret beneficial management practices — outlined in my forthcoming book Evolution of Farm Stewardship: Leaving a Legacy (June 2026) — can reduce costs, improve soil health, open premium export markets, and lower financial risk. AAFC plays a critical role in enabling these outcomes. Ignoring this opportunity will increase exposure to extreme weather and long-term costs, further driving up prices.

Rethinking agriculture’s economic role

In 1939, author and educator Peter F. Drucker argued that agriculture was no longer a primary driver of economic growth in modern economies. While influential, this view underestimates agriculture’s ongoing capacity for innovation and wealth creation. Farmers convert sunlight into food, feed, fibre, and biochemicals — creating foundational economic value — and do so more efficiently each year through technology and knowledge.

While primary farming accounted for $31.7 billion in GDP and 233,000 jobs in 2024, the broader agri-food system — including inputs, production, processing, and distribution — represents approximately seven per cent of Canada’s GDP ($149 billion) and 2.3 million (or one in nine) Canadian jobs.

The paradox of farm prosperity

Ironically, if farmers sought to maximize profits collectively, they would produce less. Organic grain systems, for example, often yield 30 to 50 per cent of conventional production. Reduced supply would raise prices and margins. In theory, farmers could even co-ordinate production to maximize shareholder (farmer) returns through collective market power.

In practice, however, agriculture is characterized by individual decision-making. Farmers respond to both low and high prices by increasing production. Supported by risk management programs, we consistently produce surplus at the lowest possible cost. Canada is one of seven countries with a persistent export surplus and is therefore highly dependent on global markets for price discovery.

When global supplies are tight, farmers prosper; when they are abundant, farmers often suffer. This system largely benefits consumers, who enjoy safe, abundant, and affordable food. Canadians spend less than 10 per cent of their income on food, and food security contributes to social and political stability.

AAFC is a critical driver of agricultural innovation. While programs should always be reviewed and improved, broad funding cuts that undermine the interconnected agricultural innovation systems are short-sighted. Prime Minister Mark Carney, if your goal is to make farmers wealthier, these measures may succeed — but it is unlikely that the other 99 per cent of Canadians would welcome the consequences.

For those of you that think cutting public spending on agricultural innovation is shortsighted, sign a petition, send a letter to your local MP, to the federal minister of agriculture and to Prime Minister Carney.

David Rourke is a grain farmer from Minto, Man.

The post OPINION: AAFC research cuts will cost farmers more than they save appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Even as the farmer watches, there are political and social expectations that we, the keepers of the land, do something to change the course of nature. It is an absurd conversation. How can anyone change the sun and stars, moon and waves, rain and snow, heat and harvests?

To prepare for this column, I went through 124 years of drought maps to see if what we experience today is reflective of what farmers experienced in the past. In the past 124 years, there have been 36 severe drought years in the United States. Perhaps the most astounding in terms of reach – for drought is often isolated to an area within a nation — was 1954 and 2021.

Canadians have endured 12 major droughts in the past 124 years that correlate closely with the American periods, especially in the years 1910-11, 1914–15, 1917–20, 1928–30, 1931–32, 1936–38, 1948–51, 1960–62, 1988–89, 2001–03, as well as 2014–15 and 2021-22.

There is a definite pattern but the severity of the weather changed in 2002 when the dry areas lost their historic boundaries and covered larger territory. Looking at weather patterns begs the question: Are we in climate change or patterns of climate normal, and if in change, who is to be held responsible?

It took 80 years for the global livestock population to double (1900–1980) and it has now been declining steadily since 2015 and continues to do so in Canada. The cows aren’t responsible.

Arable area in Canada has been in decline since its peak in 1986 and new land is not found; rather the number of arable acres is supported by a reduction in summerfallow. Weather woe is not caused by farmers creating new fields. Canada has lost more than 15,000,000 acres to urban development and in Ontario alone, over 320 acres are lost to housing and industry every single day.

Urban encroachment paves valuable farming land and disrupts natural waterways, watersheds, and Earth’s diverse storage capabilities. The soil heats. Lack of natural shade and the loss of plants that filter, store and cleanse our earth and air becomes apparent. They have been replaced by stripped mountainsides, hot black roofs, concrete slabs and resource-guzzling industry that radiate and pollute.

In this vast nation, everyone is on the move. It is not the 27,000 seasonal tractors that contribute to climate concerns. It is the 26 million motor vehicles.

Tornados strike fear in the hearts of many and there is a belief that this is new, but they are as common as a garden weed and have been recorded in Canada since 1836, primarily in southern Quebec and Ontario, parts of B.C. and the Prairies.

These catastrophic events happen, but rarely. They were more common in the 1980s, and then settled into an unpredictable but less eventful pattern. Like earthquakes, which were first reported in 1663 and are a regularly occurring event, especially in the Charlevoix region of southern Quebec, Baffin Bay and the west coast, we do not cause these events. They simply are and always have been.

From record freezing at -63 C in 1947 to massive fires, Canada has a long history of both, and has forest fire data dating to 1921. On a time map it is clear that major events covered the nation throughout the last 100 years, although 2023 was the record breaker in terms of total area affected in a single fire season.

Again, looking at historical maps, one can see the shift in consumed territory in 2002 – the same time drought manifested itself more broadly on the continent. 2002 was also the year of contrasts and extremes for weather in Canada.

From the global lens, it is evident on an active timeline map that those countries burning to create open land, such as south Asia, central Africa and South America, are constantly in flame, season after season, year after year. It is important to differentiate this in our conversation.

Weather reporting is currently filled with a touch of sensationalism that drives fear. It is difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff – to know what is true within the context of history.

Our children and our society are as exhausted with the responsibility of “saving the planet” as farmers are with living with disrupting policy and being told they are to blame.

The media conversation has been carefully crafted to steer away from the effects mining, shipping, manufacturing, urbanization and all resource exploration. Instead, we see “solutions” such as carbon credits binding food production land. That soil is our future and it needs to be both enhanced by and protected for farming.

Let’s change the dialogue. There is a time and a season for everything, and now is the time to appreciate and share that man alone does not cause weather events. However, we must collectively strive to understand our earth and respect its natural ecology using its ways of knowing and healing to better our own practices. The answers surround us.

The post Wider conversation needed on climate causes appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

This time around, the actionless talkfest carried a steeper price than previous gassy gatherings. This one left the WTO, the world’s biggest trade-rules-enforcing body, badly weakened and in danger of slipping into irrelevancy.

WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the meeting had “achieved some important things and we have not managed to complete others.”

Nice try, but the truth is that the Abu Dhabi meeting achieved little and managed nothing.

The outcome wasn’t unexpected. In fact, it would have been breaking news had the ministers agreed on any new rules.

Despite continuous bickering, the rise and eventual embrace of the WTO’s neoliberal trade regime — lower or fewer tariffs, integrated regional and global markets, more standardized food safety rules and meaningful reforms to domestic farm subsidies — did fuel decades of expanded international ag trade. Now, however, the WTO’s stumbling progress toward freer markets is running out of steam.

One cause is the rise in nationalism and the protectionism that rhetoric breeds. Another, and one that no global organization even talked about in 1995, is the increasing number of individual efforts around the world to tackle ag’s sizable role in climate change.

These highly detailed, increasingly strict programs are focusing most nations’ ag interests locally and regionally, rather than globally, as farmers adapt, argue and fight over the implementation and effect of these changes.

Arguing and fighting is exactly where many European farmers find themselves in the current protests over the European Union’s new “green” regulations.

Most protesters see red, not green, when analyzing these programs. First, they say, new farming rules that slash pesticide use and impose fertilizer limits will cut farm profits. Second, the new regulations are an engraved invitation for low-cost competitors, not burdened by “green” costs, to flood EU markets.

Political leaders are worried about rising nationalism. Right wing politicians in France, Italy and the Netherlands, they claim, already are exploiting rural anger (and doesn’t that sound familiar) in hopes of expanding their clout through European Parliament elections in June.

To head off that possibility, European “lawmakers have rushed to make concessions to appease farmers,” global affairs magazine Foreign Policy reported Feb. 24.

In the “sharpest reversal” so far, it explained, “the EU abandoned its major proposal to slash pesticide use by 50 percent…”

In the meantime, few are looking for the WTO to muscle-up and reassert its presence in international markets. For that to happen, trade analysts explain, the WTO needs to stop bleeding authority.

For example, just prior to the February ministerial, delegates could not “even agree to ‘formalize’ the talks … to revive the WTO’s top appeals court … which has been idle since 2019…”

After five years of idleness, it’s not that the WTO can’t restart the appeals court, so much as key members won’t allow the WTO to restart it. Similarly, the just-again-failed ag and overfishing overhaul is more about “won’t” than “can’t.”

The result is a weaker WTO and stronger nationalism, and that’s a bad trade by any measure.

The Farm and Food File is published weekly throughout the U.S. and Canada. Past columns, supporting documents and contact information are posted at farmandfoodfile.com. 

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As such, it soon became apparent the pain wasn’t physical. Most likely, it was emotional.

What was the emotion, though? Was it anxiety? Was it bewilderment? Maybe sorrow?

That was it: sorrow.

It was for Kevin McCarthy, now in early retirement because the Jan. 7 deal was almost the same as the one he had struck with the White House last October. That deal inflamed enough House Republicans to make him a former Speaker and a former House member.

Poor old Kevin, I thought, gone and forgotten because he woke up one day wanting to legislate, not bloviate. “Silly pragmatist,” said the House Knucklehead Caucus and, within hours, McCarthy was tossed aside only to have his deal resurrected weeks later.

By nightfall my cranky old self had re-emerged.

The U.S. Congress, too, seems to have returned to its institutional senses, at least temporarily, to ensure it doesn’t allow the fringe elements of either party into a la-la-land abyss of foolish, even stupid, policies most of America abhors.

Daringly, the first task its leaders took on was a budget deal.

That’s smart, because as soon as the presidential primary season begins in Iowa, every House and Senate vote will be weighted even more with political implications for Nov. 5, the day of 2024’s local, state and federal elections.

The U.S. isn’t the only country that will hold crucial elections this year. “Globally,” reported Time magazine Dec. 28, “more voters than ever in history will head to the polls as at least 64 countries (plus the European Union) — representing a combined population of about 49 per cent of the people in the world — are meant to hold national elections…”

Moreover, the publication added, the “results … for many, will prove consequential for years to come…”

Some of the most affected nations include the world’s most populous country, India, and its neighbours Bangladesh and Pakistan. Other countries holding national elections are the United Kingdom, Mexico, Iran, Cambodia, Jordan, and both Ukraine and its battlefield opponent, Russia.

All make 2024, “not just an election year” but “perhaps the election year,” Time adds.

U.S. Farm Bill

This year could also be the Farm Bill-writing year in the U.S. for at least two reasons. First, it’s already a year late. Also, the Democrats may be running out of time to influence any final bill.

The delay is typical of recent Farm Bills fights. Deep differences between the Republican-controlled House Ag Committee and the Democrat-controlled Senate Ag Committee over food assistance have delayed past bills.

Stark differences remain for the-now 2024 bill, and no one in either party or chamber returned from the holiday break in a charitable, let’s-get-this-done mood. In fact, remarkably little news emerged from either camp in the last six weeks.

Looming over any bipartisan compromise is the pending retirement of Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, the Democratic leader of the upper chamber’s ag committee and the key figure in passing the year-delayed 2018 Farm Bill.

Stabenow has vowed to fight proposed House GOP cuts to food assistance and to protect the Biden administration’s long-term “green” ag spending.

Her planned November retirement hangs over any deal this year. Continued delays by House Ag Republicans, combined with the probable retaking of the Senate by the GOP in November, would be a blow to both Stabenow and any hope for a bipartisan Farm Bill.

First, however, the U.S. Congress needs to pass the 2024 federal budget. Can this year’s renewed sense of institutional urgency move members to work through their personal and political differences to complete this straightforward responsibility?

Only time – and the Speaker-chucking Knucklehead Caucus – will tell.

The Farm and Food File is published weekly throughout the U.S. and Canada. Past columns, supporting documents and contact information are posted at farmfoodfile.com

The post New year, new deal in the U.S.? appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Well, it seems that the CMC (Canadian Meteorological Centre) weather model got it right last forecast period. The forecast low tracked well to our north and, thanks to a strong ridge of high pressure that was building to our west, we saw mostly dry weather with summer-like temperatures.

For this forecast period, the big question is whether the west ridge of high pressure and its associated hot temperatures will be able to push eastward into our region — or will the ridge collapse before making it to us? This time around, both weather models seem to agree.

Let’s look at the big picture. There will be a very large and strong ridge of high pressure centred over B.C., bringing sunny skies and hot temperatures to B.C. and Alberta. To our east, there is a large trough of low pressure stretching from Hudson Bay southward into the western Great Lakes. This is creating a blocking pattern, which means the western ridge will have a hard time pushing east.

What does this mean for our forecast region? For the first half of this forecast period we will be in a northwesterly flow, with the western ridge trying to slowly push into our region. Energy riding overtop of the ridge will slide southeast across our region every few days, bringing with it a mix of sun and clouds along with the chance of the odd shower or thundershower. None of these systems look to be strong, meaning no widespread significant rains. Temperatures will be summer-like, with daytime highs in the mid- to upper 20s and overnight lows falling into the mid-teens.

For the second half of this forecast period (July 5-9), the models show the western ridge flattening and pushing east. This will continue our pattern of mostly dry weather with temperatures and humidity levels nudging upward a little bit. Looking further ahead, the weather models hint that the ridge will begin rebuilding — but this time across our region, which would result in hot weather moving in by late in the week.

Usual temperature range for this period: Highs, 21 to 30 C; lows, 10 to 17 C.

The post Weather: A mostly dry and warm spell ahead appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Although invisible to the naked eye, the horse and human cannot exist apart from the biology and ecology of their microbiome and the microbiome is being heralded as the next most important bodily system.

There is emerging evidence that the gut microbiome with its complex interactions of microbial communities including bacteria, archaea, parasites, protozoa, viruses and fungi is involved in more than just food digestion and that the microbiota interplays intimately with the immune, neurological, and hormonal systems of the body. Even glucose and energy metabolism have been found to be influenced by the microbiome.

Equine veterinarians and horse owners have long been aware of the notoriously sensitive nature of the horse’s digestive system. To a large degree the horse owes this sensitivity to the ecology of the microbial community within the digestive tract. The equine microbiome is intrinsically linked to the horse’s physical, mental and emotional soundness. As such, circumstances that disturb the health and balance of the equine microbiome have numerous downstream consequences to the horse’s health and welfare.

Dysbiosis refers to an imbalance in the intestinal microbiota which precipitates changes in health. When this imbalance is severe in the horse, it may clinically manifest as colic, colitis, acute laminitis, and/or diarrhea. Less serious derangements to the microbiota can be responsible for weight loss, ill thrift, failure to thrive, undesirable behaviours, gastric or hindgut ulceration, inflammatory bowel diseases, periodontal disease, generalized inflammation, obesity, chronic laminitis, neurological diseases and metabolic syndromes. Because the ability to definitely diagnose dysbiosis is not readily accessible, its connections to various expressions of illness often go unrecognized.

Research has found that the microbiome of non-domesticated horses includes a more diverse spectrum of microbiota compared to the overall low diversity of the core bacterial community found in domesticated horses. This may be one possible explanation for the overall sensitivity of the domestic horse to gastrointestinal tract diseases in comparison to their wild counterparts.

The microbiome is entirely unique to each being. The horse is initially exposed to micro-organisms at birth as the foal passes through the birth canal and then exposure continues through nursing and exploration of the environment. The change in the population and composition of the young horse’s microbiome during the first six months of life is remarkable when considering the intestinal flora goes from sterile in utero, moves through a milk diet and then to a relatively stable and teeming microbiome capable of digesting a diet based solely upon plant fibre and forage.

Establishment of a ‘quality stock’ microbiome during a horse’s formative years is essential to a lifetime of resilient digestive health for the horse. Stall rearing, early and abrupt weaning practices, introduction of large amounts of grains and processed feeds to the young horse and social isolation are detrimental to the stability and diversity of the ‘stock’ microbiome.

Later in life, diet, stress and environmental circumstances can influence or change the microbiome as well.

The diet of the horse is likely the largest influence upon the microbiome. The reason for this is simply because the diet of the horse is also the food source or diet for the microbiome. This teeming community has a very specific, maybe even finicky appetite for quality forage. This dietary script is necessary for the microbiome to play its proper role in providing health-giving nutrients to the horse.

The readily available sugars and starches, processed fats, preservatives and supplements built into designer equine rations have a profound impact upon the resident microbial populations affecting the pH and viability of the gut lining and altering the protective qualities of its mucous lining. Unnatural and unfamiliar food sources to the resident microbial populations indirectly contribute to systemic inflammation. The ongoing inflammation often triggered in the horse with today’s rich diets may actually be a contributing reason as to why health issues seem resistant to remedy. An unfavourable shift in the microbiome may potentially contribute to inflammatory conditions, insulin resistance, metabolic syndromes, allergies, poor hoof integrity and chronic laminitis.

Unfortunately horses with smouldering dysbiosis may be perceived to be ‘just not quite right’ or ‘deficient’ in some way and the synthetic solutions sought as remedies further compound the problem.

Unnatural feeding practices, stressors such as travel or changing herdmates, medications, dewormers, vaccines and steroids can all alter the delicate and at times precarious microbial balance within the hindgut. Often this results in alterations to the horse as a whole, whether it be attitude, health or performance.

Key management practices that can aid in keeping the horse’s microbiome healthy and happy include what is fed, how often feed is available, and with whom the horse eats. Plenty of high-quality long-stem fibre is the mainstay of a horse’s diet. If a variety of forages are built into the diet, the microbiome will be diverse, stable and resilient. Horses are trickle feeders and one could say this is a quality of the microbiome as well. Plenty of exercise and movement are favourable for gut motility and functionality. Make changes to the diet gradually. This will allow the microbiome to adapt. Ensure plenty of fresh water is readily available as the entire digestive process ‘runs as a river.’ Horses with these management advantages are better able to maintain gastrointestinal tract normalcy, reducing chances of health and behaviour problems.

Equine husbandry must carefully consider the impact that caretaking practices have upon the microbiome because a healthy microbiome nourishes and takes care of the horse in innumerable ways. If a horse’s microbiome is happy and thriving, chances are the horse will be happy and thriving too.

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Inside the local community hall and curling rink, however, there was a clear sense of warmth and community.

The hamlet had pulled out all the stops to host its annual fall supper — the 135th iteration of the annual event — and it was a textbook case of a community pulling together for a common cause. Vehicles packed the parking lot and lined the highway leading through town.

Down at the community hall, the cooks were cranking out a delicious turkey dinner with all the fixings and filling both takeout orders and thermal boxes that were efficiently transported down to the curling rink, where locals and visitors alike piled in for the fall feast.

At the curling rink itself, the volunteer force drew everyone from kids in their early teens to retirees as they served up pie, poured coffee, tea and juice and just generally made a smoothly operating machine out of what could have just as easily slid into chaos as a first-come, first-served event. But with everyone pulling together the lines moved quickly, tables were seated, served and cleared with good humour and grace.

The sight caused a bit of reflection on the nature of volunteerism in a smaller centre and the unique dedication it takes. That’s not to say there isn’t a similar commitment in larger towns and cities like Winnipeg — but as a part of the function of the larger population base, those efforts are generally more specialized.

Small groups of like-minded citizens who care deeply about an issue such as feeding hungry kids a nutritious breakfast at school or helping the city’s homeless population navigate another frigid winter band together and do great service to their communities too. But those efforts tend to draw on a limited pool of volunteers from a much larger population base.

The sort of all-hands-on-deck efforts seen in small towns is rarer, confined generally to something such as a spring flood that draws volunteer sandbaggers rallying to help strangers.

In the smaller centres of Manitoba however, there isn’t the luxury of that larger pool of helping hands and it’s frequently the same group of community-minded volunteers that pull together again and again. These are the helping hands that keep hockey and curling rinks operating, the local museum open and the like. Without them these communities would struggle to be true communities, and their efforts daily weave the social fabric of rural Manitoba.

One can only hope this proud tradition continues throughout the province in the coming decades, giving us all, country folk and city dweller alike, the occasional opportunity to experience it and even lend our own helping hands.

By doing so we build and support communities.

The post Editorial: All hands on deck appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The Trudeau government has promised to lower the boom on what it characterizes as the abuse of private corporations by high-income individuals to avoid taxation.

Doctors have been especially vocal in their condemnation of the move, saying they have forgone fee increases in negotiations with provincial governments in exchange for the right to incorporate and lower their tax burden.

Now they’re decrying that what one level of government gave, another took away. With somewhere around two-thirds of Canadian doctors incorporated, it promises to fundamentally alter the economic reality of many doctors.

Lost in the busy summer season, however, has been the potential impact on farmers — about one-quarter of farms are incorporated. Edmonton-based accountant Allan Sawiak, of Kingston Ross Pasnak LLP, has been sounding the alarm in a recent letter to clients and farm groups.

In the document, Sawiak notes what he describes as “shocking” changes that will affect various strategies an increasing number of farms use to manage their tax burden.

• Read more on Country Guide: Incorporation pushes farms into higher gear

There’s “income sprinkling” which sees a corporation gain revenue, rather than an individual, and then splitting that income among family members in the form of salary or dividends, which serves to lower the overall tax bite.

The government says that in the future these payments will only be valid if family members are shown to have earned it either through their labour or through capital investments in the corporation. In particular, they’ve said they’ll be watching very closely payments made to children between the ages of 18 and 24.

So-called ‘passive investments’ are also under the gun, which refers to making investments in stocks and bonds through a business, rather than individually, and therefore paying a lower tax rate in the end.

The feds also say they’ll be cracking down on the use of the lifetime capital gains exemption, which shelters more than $835,000 of capital gains in qualifying small-business shares. Currently business people and their financial advisers are able to use the exemptions of many family members to protect capital gains from taxation. Once again, younger family members seem to be the target of the proposed changes.

Sawiak also notes that a proposed grace period for capital gains exemption may provide some relief, but will also create issues of its own, including boosting the amount of tax paid under the ‘alternative minimum tax’ system.

Perhaps most troubling for farmers is that the government appears to be proposing to crack down on the very concept of incorporating a small business like a farm. The federal government is proposing a crackdown on transactions that would prevent any transaction that creates income at a lower tax rate. Sawiak notes in his letter to clients that the proposals “… are broad enough that they could apply to common situations like selling farm assets to a corporation.”

It’s clear, according to financial professionals, that these changes aren’t small potatoes. They’re a fundamental alteration in the way that professionals and small business owners can use incorporation to manage their affairs.

Alan Acton, an Ontario-based financial adviser to doctors and finance columnist, recently noted the proposals fundamentally call into question whether there will be any benefit in the future to incorporation.

That would seem to dovetail nicely with the government’s goal and may placate some who feel the wealthy are given tax advantages that most Canadians cannot access. But it’s a simplistic analysis of the situation.

The truth is most of the people setting up a corporation are operating in a far different environment than most salaried and hourly employees.

They’re taking more risk. They’re funding more for themselves, such as retirement saving and other benefits like medical care. They therefore claim they need the structure of incorporation to do so.

Critics of the move warn of the risk of pushing out well-trained and mobile professionals and the chilling effect on entrepreneurship. They also note many of the affected may simply close up shop and move — something that’s not an option for a farmer.

For farmers perhaps the greatest risk is that the proposed changes now throw a lot of doubt on succession plans set up under the old rules. Many of these will now need to be revisited and perhaps revised.

The changes are set for this fall and farmers need to understand them, respond to government, and make sure their financial houses are in order.

The government is currently seeking input up until an Oct. 2 deadline.

While the timing is terrible, this might be important enough to park the combine long enough to write a letter.

The post Editorial: The taxman cometh appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The old guys at coffee in this part of the nation
Used to trade “It was sooo… dry” tales about lack of precipitation
But when today’s future old farmers sip lattes from fresh-roasted beans
They’ll talk about how wet it was way back in the teens
Says one, “Remember 2016, and that three-month typhoon
“To combine my flax I needed to install pontoons.”
Says another, “At least you had a crop to give you the troubles
“Why, when I tried my air seeder all it did was blow bubbles.”
A third says, “I was paddling out in my pasture, and what did I sees
“But gophers mating with squirrels, and nesting in trees.”

Most farmers are finally convinced that all of that harpin’
Was right about filling the atmosphere with way too much carbon
Climate change may be fine if longer-season crops you are able
To grow, but the flip side is that things are much too unstable
That extra rain may help grow a bin-buster crop to haul in
But it’s a bust if you can’t harvest the buster to put in the bin
Since farmers have the most to lose from carbon pollution
It’s up to them to be part of the climate-change solution
It’s time to take better care of the topsoil by filling it
With all that carbon it lost by excessively tilling it
Some say that to fight climate change we should be starting
To have fewer bovines with all their burping and farting
On the contrary, I think the best way for more carbon storage
Is to eliminate tillage and grow more grasses and forage
When you harvest with livestock it’s not so bad if it’s wetter
And not only that, grass-fed meat tastes much better

More forage would also help with that problem endemical
Of weeds’ increasing resistance to just about every chemical
Last winter I attended an agronomical convention
On rotating your herbicides for resistance prevention
It made me think fondly of back in the day
When your choice was just between 2,4-D and MCPA
Now you’ve got amides, and chlorsulforons, and metolachlor
Pyrazon, hexazinone, quinclorac, desmedipham and chlopyrachlor
That’s confusing enough, and you want to throw up your hands
When you learn each is sold under about 12 different brands
But if you don’t use them in the right order, first thing you know
You’ll have a wild oat that you can only kill with a hoe

Hoeing, by the way, is about the only way to manage
Weeds in California crops such as broccoli, lettuce and cabbage
But the thing is that most of those who are doing the hoeing
Are illegals to whom Trump says, “Back home you are going”
When he figures that out I’ll watch with some humour
Whether he caves to the complaints of outraged consumers
If the prospect of higher veg prices raises their ire
The wall might turn out just to be a strand of barbed wire
But even if imported veggie prices cause consumers distress
Larry McIntosh will still have a recipe for ’em in every Free Press

That’s just one of my predictions; I know that you’ve waited
For a year to hear more, and with your breath bated
I’ve continued my Internet course studies, and now I can say
That I’ve received my diploma as an ag adviser MBA
Canola prices for instance? Well, I’d say my best call
Is to wait for them to peak, and then sell it all
Wheat prices? You can quote me; I really don’t like them
I think the decent thing would be for the buyers to hike them
As for what you should plant? Well, examine each field
And rotate into something different this year to ensure higher yield
What should Manitoba farmers seed? Well, let me assure ’em

It’s not a good idea to plant either lentils or durum
It’s not quite a wreck, but it’s rather annoying
To see cattle prices lower than we were enjoying
I think the solution is to make marketing much slicker
When selling beef, put a better name on the sticker
The name “chuck” for instance makes buyers turn colder
Let’s change it to “epaulette” (a fancy French word for shoulder)
As for the name “rump” I don’t much like the sound
If you called it “Derriere” you’d get a buck more a pound
I’m sure this idea would work, you’re welcome to use it
But will retailers share the beef profits with those who produce it?
I’ve many more profitable ideas, but once again I fear
That I’ve run out of space; you’ll have to wait till next year
Until then, on behalf of everyone here
I send you best wishes for a great farming year
May your calves all pop out without any assistance
May your weeds all die quickly without any resistance
May you have just the right balance of rain and of sun
And whatever you grow, may it grade number one!

John Morriss, Co-operator editor emeritus

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Without them wheels don’t turn, work isn’t done, products aren’t created and customers aren’t served.

If that really is so, and there’s a small library of management manuals to back that claim, agriculture in Canada is in real trouble.

A joint study from the Conference Board of Canada and the Canadian Agriculture Human Resource Council (CAHRC) paints a grim picture of the sector, where jobs go begging and are vacant at twice the rate of other economic sectors. The study says the answer is to bring in temporary foreign workers in ever-larger numbers, streamlining the process so farmers don’t have to be bothered with pesky paperwork or justifications and generally just accepting that it won’t be Canadian citizens filling these jobs.

I can certainly understand the attraction of this approach. After all, other sectors have employed it with good effect, and it does seem like it would provide a relatively quick solution. I’m just not sure that in the end it’s a sustainable solution, or one that the industry should be comfortable with the moral implications of.

There are stories all across Canada of TFWs being abused and taken advantage of, treated as virtual slaves. While I am sure there are plenty of farms where these workers would find they were treated well, the simple truth is there’s always going to be a bad apple in every barrel. And unfortunately it’s the rotten ones you’ve got to regulate for.

There’s also the message greater participation in the TFW system would send to the general public. Currently farmers punch well above their weight in public support, though I appreciate it may not seem like that at times. But it’s true — agriculture enjoys greater public support and has a friendlier regulatory environment than almost any other sector of the economy I can think of. In no small part that’s due to how the public sees you as stalwart small businesses that regularly struggle with things like the weather not under your control. The TFW program infers more than a whiff of the plantation and makes you less sympathetic, especially if stories begin leaking out from farms managed by the aforementioned bad apples.

At its heart as well, I feel this call is based on a false premise, intentional or not.

I don’t buy the idea there aren’t Canadian citizens who could fill these jobs. I think there are plenty of people who would take on this work, the problem is the jobs aren’t good enough to attract them.

As employers you’re basically offering low wages, long hours and the guarantee of a layoff at the end of the season, then turning around and wondering why nobody is lining up. In a market economy, economic theory tells us, the solution is to change that. Make the jobs more attractive. If they’re more attractive, more people will be interested in them.

The study says higher wages aren’t the solution, and I’ll agree they’re not the whole solution — but they’re certainly going to be part of the equation. Better money can make potential employees ignore a host of other factors, as the energy industry proved in recent years, luring employees from far and wide to locations in the middle of nowhere with nothing but rows of bunkhouses, hard work and boredom.

Sure, with the margins on an average farm, it’s not likely to be easy to match that, but judging from the job losses in the energy sector in recent years — some analysts say as many as 180,000 may find themselves out of work eventually — you won’t necessarily have to.

Money aside, there are other issues that can be addressed.

One is the seasonal nature of the business. True, you can’t change that crops are planted and harvested when they are, but the farmers I’ve seen who have fewer problems with this issue are the ones who attempt to find year-round work for their employees. They operate side businesses trucking, seed cleaning and so on, or they find and cultivate employees who find seasonality works for them.

A lot of farms could also stand to up their human resources game. In an era where there are a lot of other options for prospective employees, you need to offer at least as good an alternative. That means predictability, doing the necessary paperwork and accepting that employees should be treated with respect.

One Saskatchewan farmer of my acquaintance always has no trouble filling up his harvest crew every fall. When one of the neighbours asked how he did it, his reply was succinct and to the point: “I bring them on, I put them on an easier job to start with, like running the combine, and I don’t yell at them.”

The numbers make the clear case that there’s a problem here the Canadian agriculture sector needs to solve.

But pursuing the easy solution to this problem is likely to spin off a whole host of new and larger problems.

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