NFU PUBLISHES REPORT OF AGRIBUSINESS PROFITS
AND THE CAUSES OF THE FARM CRISIS
SASKATOON, Sask.—“Amid record-high demand for food, farmers’ economy-topping
efficiency gains, record-low costs per unit of production, and food
consumption outstripping production, farmers have posted their second-largest
losses in history. And agribusiness corporations have posted their
largest profits. These facts are compatible with only one explanation
of the farm crisis: the rewards of farmer productivity, efficiency,
and cost-cutting are being seized by more-powerful players in the agri-food
chain. Farmers are being plundered and liquidated.” So concludes
The Farm Crisis and Corporate Profits, a report published today by
Canada’s National Farmers Union.
The Farm Crisis and Corporate Profits names the dominant agribusiness
corporations from one end of the agri-food chain to the other. It lists
their profits and Return on Equity rates for 2004. The report finds
that in that year, over 75% of those corporations posted record or
near-record profits. In 2004, farmers posted near-record losses. The
report goes on to examine the many mechanisms that agribusiness corporations
use to capture more and more of the revenues and profits from the agri-food
chain.
“Everyone in the food chain is making record-high profits except
farmers. In our report, we document a huge transfer of profitability
from family farmers to the dominant agribusiness corporations. It’s
not just that we’re suffering and they’re taking record
profits: we’re suffering because they’re taking record
profits,” said NFU President Stewart Wells.
NFU Director of
Research Darrin Qualman said that “As you move
down the list of the 75 companies detailed in our report, the profits
are amazing. Single companies make more than all the farmers in Canada
combined. There has never been more profit made in food—money
on both sides of the farmers, the input side and the processing and
retailing side. With so many taking so much profit out of the system,
farmers should consider the possibility that the farm crisis is a case
of agribusiness eating farmers’ economic lunch and leaving them
to starve financially.”
The NFU’s
16-page report is available at www.nfu.ca/briefs/corporate_profits.pdf
For More Information:
Darrin Qualman, NFU Director of Research:
(306) 652-9465 or (306) 492-4714 or (306) 227-2273
Stewart Wells, NFU President:
(306) 773-6852