Agriculture
North American agriculture is in the midst of a “great transition” that is fundamentally transforming rural areas. Agriculture as we have known it, with family farms and viable rural communities, is being rapidly transformed into an industrial agriculture, with factory farms and dying rural communities.
The restructuring of hog production in North America provides a rare clear view into the mechanisms and effects of corporate globalization. And the community-by-community fight to stop the incursion of corporate mega-barns and retain family farm hog production provides an example of effective and gritty local resistance to the most negative aspects of globalization.
The long-awaited report into the expansion of hog production in Manitoba, based on the findings of last fall's citizens' hearings in Brandon, will be released Thursday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba.
OTTAWA--Canadian farmers are struggling with near-record low prices and many face bankruptcy unless the current crisis is adequately addressed by the federal and provincial governments. But governments are mistakenly blaming Canadian farmers' plight on the domestic agricultural subsidies supplied to farmers in other countries, primarily in Europe. They are ignoring the real cause of the crisis, which is the enormous imbalance in market power and income between the big agribusiness corporations and the family-owned farms.
Canadian farmers are struggling with near-record low prices and many face bankruptcy unless the current crisis is adequately addressed by the federal and provincial governments. The real cause of this crisis is the enormous imbalance in market power and income between the big agribusiness corporations and the family-owned farms, not the domestic agricultural subsidies supplied to farmers in other countries. This study finds that the market is failing to return a fair and adequate share of the consumer dollar to farmers.