In reponse to a letter to the Editor and a reader's comment on it.

Patrick Jilesen made a good point - and Robert Hope implicitly gives him that as well.

IF a business mainly competes globally and with cheap imports, then the hike of labour costs has strong consequences for the industry.
Economic theory suggests two options:

1) Ensure that your products distinguish themselves in quality and other attributes, which allows charging a price premium, or

2) Ensure that imports that rely on exploitative labour relationships are penalized. Agriculture is in a difficult position:

• Most producers target an anonymous market that is focused on characteristics like impeccable visual product qualities and on price. Here, product distinction that justifies profitable pricing is not feasible (e.g. no pesticides, heritage variety, organic label, etc)
• NAFTA and other free trade treaties do not permit sanctions against production practices that utilize illegal migrants as labourers, or destroy the environment, or depress production costs in other manners that ultimately destroy our planet or/and the essence of human community.

Individual producers cannot do anything about either aspect, and are locked in into the "RACE TO THE BOTTOM". Organizations like the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) can either give in to this race to the bottom, or educate about it and find ways out of it. Apparently, they currently choose the former option, and advocate for the race to the bottom. I would like to bring to everyone's attention that this logic ultimately embraces a free trade regime that rewards the exploitative and destructive.

This logic will in the long run abolish supply management (eggs, chicken, milk) and thus undermine the farming community, without really showing a path toward profitability.

Agricultural organizations are at the core of a very complex political struggle that will, in my opinion, determine the outcome of much of the world: labour relationships, our environment and climate, and social glue are all assets that can be sacrificed toward the "RACE TO THE BOTTOM". Unless we are the leaders in this race, our agricultural industry will still lose money... and if we are the leaders, we will lose everything else. That is the practical outcome of what economists call the "Zero-Profit condition" 

Some day, agricultural organizations will have to make a choice and hit the brake on this race to the bottom, stop for a moment, and engage in a constructive dialogue about our future - I think the people of Ontario deserve it.

Thorsten Arnold

Grey Bruce Center for Agroecology