More "Think Tank" Thinking

I am tired, tired, tired of the many 'experts' out there who are doing study after study, to prove to dairy farmers that their system is broken and they had best give it all up. I am sure that these 'think tanks' are a) paid by someone other than dairy farmers to tell them these so called salient facts and b) subscribe to the marketing theory of 'if you say something often enough they are going to start to believe you'. The most recent entrant on the Think Tank stage to 'study' the dairy industry again is the George Morris Centre.

The newest drivel to be passed along to farmer, consumer and governments alike is entitled:

After Hong Kong: Potential Impacts of the WTO Doha Round
SPECIAL REPORT
Larry Martin, Al Mussell, and Terri-lyn Moore
April, 2006 (http://www.georgemorris.org )

The latest results from Doha have been analyzed to death by many but not content with that, the vaunted George Morris Centre has provided us with just one more. After a great deal of detail , charts, tariff lists and a discussion about what the “United States probably would not do”, the only thing I can take away from the whole package, is that anyone who thinks they’ve got it right about what the Americans may do in any situation, hasn’t been paying much attention to the irrational activities that go on south of this border, when Americans think they’ve got something to loose! That is one horse Canadian farmers had better not bet on, at any price!!

The other real issue and the point of the whole report, is to provide the powers that be in our Federal government, with the ammunition they may like to have, to take a position at the WTO, that will only result in more harm to the one thing they should be protecting AND promoting, as a solution to farm price woes. That is ‘market power‘ for farmers. The Canadian Wheat Board and Supply Management are the only 2 systems that have managed to do that for farmers in the last 50 years.

With fewer and fewer processors and retailers in this country, any farmer who thinks he is going to go it alone against these giants is just dreaming in Technicolor. He also hasn’t been paying attention to the track record of these large multi-nationals in their dealings with agriculture.
As outlined by John Kenneth Galbraith in many of his books, the issue of corporations and their power in the marketplace and the world, may be out of control. They are a law unto themselves.

Not content with this re-analysis, the George Morris Centre goes one step farther and is trying to tell dairy farmers that they have no choice, they may as well prepare for the inevitable, etc, etc., etc. I have heard all of this before. Dairy farmers and their leaders had better remember that they have everything to loose and nothing to gain, by listening to another Think Tank’s thinking.