Renaud, 33, farms 850 acres and is no shrinking violet. He admits he can sometimes be a hot head. He was one of the initial eastern Ontario farmers to launch the tractor demonstrations in 2000 and 2001. He wanted the tractors to park on Parliament hill when they settled for demonstrating at the Ottawa Valley Farm Show. He was also among the about 15 farmers that were in the House of Commons in 2001 when Members of Parliament voted to give crop farmers a $500 million bail out package due to poor prices and a poor harvest. Renaud and the others turned their backs on the Members of Parliament and walked out as television news cameras followed their backs. "They threw a bucket of water on a forest fire," he said.

The same subsidy advantage farmers in the U.S. had over Canadian farmers three years ago, still exists, he says. "There’s nothing going to happen." OCPA executives still think the solution is to lobby an MP. But that doesn’t work any more. Two years ago he was one of the organizers who put the tractors on Ontario highways, pushed corn producers to a new militancy and disaster relief became a reality.

He says his experience as a director has taught him that "everyone should withhold the checkoff." He pays 20 cents checkoff per tonne now and wouldn’t mind paying $2.00 per tonne, if he could get something in return. "I can’t sell my old crop for $133," he says. That’s down from $156 last fall. The local co-op said it would buy the corn if he we were stuck for $127.

This year, he will receive $131 per tonne for new corn, a major drop, but his input costs per acre of $400 have risen. One of the saving graces this year is that yields in his corn fields will probably climb from 3.4 tonne per acre to 3.8 tonnes.

He’s angry that farmers at CASCO’s plant at Port Colborne are getting $12 more per tonne than farmers shipping to Cardinal. Economists argue that the east is in a surplus position and thus the lower price. But Renaud isn’t buying. "We’re getting shafted," he said. One solution to the problem of low corn prices in the east would be to have a second major buyer. However, the proposed ethanol plant at Cornwall stalled about three years ago.

Last year when Manitoba and Quebec wanted to put a countervail against American corn, because it was undercutting the Canadian market, the OCPA backed down. That was the wrong decision, he says.