Statistics Canada asks too much of farmers

Most farmers have been harassed by callers from Statistics Canada trying to get information on farm size, crop quality, volume and a host of other questions.

Farmers understood and accepted this intrusion when they thought the information was used solely for agricultural policy decisions or program development. However, when it is used to determine market signals and prices, it makes farmers irritated.

The information on crop volume, quality, and how much the farmer has in storage are all critical market signals. After all, if StatsCan reports record amounts of wheat sitting in farmers’ bins across the Prairies, that signals to speculators and elevator agents that many farmers might be desperate to sell. It signals to them they can offer farmers lower prices.

When farmers had the Canadian Wheat Board, it used its power of orderly marketing to make sure the speculators could not manipulate prices based on the information Stats Canada took from farmers and made public.

But without the Wheat Board, farmers are at the mercy of the private trade.

So where is the benefit to farmers for providing sensitive commercial information when that information will be used to take profits from them? Why should farmers provide that data at no cost to Stats Canada when it ultimately costs them?

Why does Statistics Canada only survey farmers to determine market signals?

Does Statistics Canada monitor or report how many ships are waiting in port to be loaded, capacity at port terminals, capacity levels of inland terminals, rail line transit times and quantities, fertilizer silo levels, outstanding contract deliveries, pending contract deliveries, prices and rail line operational details (crew sizes, locomotive numbers, etc.)?

And where is Stats Canada when it comes to reporting market concentration and lower prices for prairie farmers?

Where is the Stats Canada information that would provide the public and farmers with details they could use to understand the market?!

Perhaps the affable but obviously under-qualified Minister of Agriculture should actually act, for once, to protect the interests of farmers and let the industry take care of itself.

Is it time for the minister to tell Stats Canada to butt out of farmers’ business? Kyle Korneychuk, Pelly