Workers and working farmers should oppose state officials along the Canada-U.S. border halting trucks transporting into the United States wheat and livestock produced by farmers in Canada. We also oppose all moves by the U.S. government to weaken or destroy the Canada Wheat Board.
In response to the continuing plunge in farm prices, officials from five states began in mid-September to pull over and delay or send back to Canada truckers transporting grain and livestock from Canada. They used food safety, truck weight, and highway safety laws as a pretext for stopping the trucks. They claimed farmers in Canada had unfair trade advantages because of the low value of the Canadian dollar compared to the U.S. dollar and because of the centralized marketing of wheat and barley through the Canadian Wheat Board.
The economic crisis hitting working farmers highlights one of the biggest contradictions of capitalism, overproduction. Yet, instead of helping to alleviate massive hunger in the world this glut leads to tens of thousands of food producers being forced out of farming due to low prices. Farm prices are generally at their lowest level in a decade and in some cases longer.
U.S. rulers and agribusiness giants are using this crisis on the land to fuel reactionary, chauvinist "U.S. first" notions to increase their position against capitalist rivals in Canada. The USDA has announced that one of its goals in the next round of GATT talks that begin late next year is to force Ottawa to cut the powers of the Canadian Wheat Board. The Wheat Board was established in the 1930s as the result of protests won by farmers in Canada to help provide a buffer for working farmers against grain traders, processors, and railroad owners. This body is not the enemy of U.S. wheat farmers, but of U.S. agribusiness.
Workers in the U.S. should fight along with farmers by aiming our fire at the U.S. government, not farmers in Canada. We demand:
An immediate moratorium to all farm foreclosures.
The U.S. government guarantee farmers enough income from their produce to meet expenses and make a decent living.
Elimination of income and real estate taxes to exploited farmers.
Cheap credit based on need.
We urge unionists, farmers, and consumers to form watchdog committees to police monopoly food processors and merchants who buy cheap from farmers and jack up prices in the supermarket in order to reap big profits.
Fighting together around these demands will give workers and working farmers the confidence to run society for our own needs, separate from those of the ruling rich, by fighting for a workers and farmers government here, in Canada, and around the world based on human need not profit.