Media Clipping — Friday August.15th, 2008, The Canadian Press
Also printed in CFRB Radio, Aliant News, Canada East, Shaw, Winnipeg Sun, Yahoo News, and CTV News

Farm incomes in N.S. and P.E.I. at rock bottom, report concludes

Herman Berfelo and his family have tended to thousands of hogs on their sprawling farm in central Nova Scotia for more than five decades.

His father started the once-lucrative operation in 1950 and now Berfelo and his son are trying to maintain the 220-hectare operation in Stewiacke, a small community in the province's agricultural heartland.

But the veteran farmer is weighing his future in the business as his debt grows and the price he gets for his pork products slumps because of cheap imports - factors a new study suggests are threatening the viability of farming in the region.

"It could very well be (the last generation)," Berfelo, 68, said from his farm, where they produce sausages, ham, bacon and other pork products. "It's sad to see it all go the way it is because if you look up and down in a lot of areas you see a lot of abandoned farms that are perfectly good farmland...It's just becoming more and more difficult."

The sentiment appears to be spreading among farmers in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, according to a report released Friday that shows more are sinking deeper into debt as the cost of doing business rises while the returns keep shrinking.

Jennifer Scott of GPI Atlantic, the non-profit research group in Nova Scotia that produced the study, said the group reviewed data going back to 1971 and found farmers in both provinces are now earning less than at any time in the last four decades.

"It's so bad that we could lose it really fast," she said. "The processing is unravelling, farm infrastructure is unravelling, plants are closing and we see the loss of farms.

"The next generation can't afford to farm."

Scott said the situation has grown so bleak on many farms that farmers are routinely getting other jobs, selling off pieces of their operations or leaving them outright.

The findings indicated that the biggest problem is that prices paid to producers for their products are not keeping pace with farm expenses, particularly the cost of fuel and wages.

Net farm income has dropped by more than 90 per cent in Nova Scotia and 92 per cent on the Island since 1971.

Total farm debt increased by 146 per cent in Nova Scotia, and by 445 per cent in P.E.I. between 1971 and 2006.

"All of the indicators of economic viability are dismal," Scott said from her farm in Centre Burlington, N.S. "We need to change really quickly. We don't have any time to study this anymore. We need to do something."

Nova Scotia represents only two per cent of national agricultural production, but is valued at $450 million annually while P.E.I.'s industry is worth about $360 million.

William Versteeg of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture said he sees people leaving the industry on a weekly basis and blames the provincial government for failing to produce a strategy to deal with the crisis.

"We've identified solutions and government has not acted," he said.

"Now we have a report that says basically we told you so, so now it's time to do something."

Experts say the red meat sectors are in particular distress, with local operations now producing only 15 per cent of the pork consumed in the province, compared with about 60 per cent five years ago.

Versteeg said farmers need help diversifying into niche markets that are in demand, such as organic farming.

Ron Colman, executive director of GPI, said the consolidation of grocery retailers has also hurt farmers since they import cheaper goods from countries like China and shut out local producers.

Consumers should demand more local food from their grocers, giving farmers an edge over overseas producers, Scott said.

Berfelo hopes people will pay more attention to where their food is coming from and support local growers. But he admits that even after buying an abattoir for his hogs, he questions how long he'll be able to hang in the business.

"Are we making the right move? I don't know because we're burning up our equity and taking on some debt and hoping that things will turn around," he said.

"We've always made a living at this, but it's never been this bad for this long."

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