By Patrick Meagher

WINCHESTER -- Ontario corn producers are in a fight for their livelihoods as grassroots farmers scramble to get their neighbours, friends and suppliers onto buses to support rallies in Guelph Feb. 14 and in Ottawa Feb. 21.

Eastern Ontario farmers have been running tractor rallies since 2001 and this time organizers say they have support from western Ontario farmers who now appear hardest hit by five years of low commodity prices that for the first time are showing signs of wiping out an industry.

Farmers also vow to ramp up their protests. They say there will be consequences if the new Conservative government doesn’t support the risk management program that commodity groups have been marketing since last summer. One consequence being considered is a planned shut down of food terminals with union support, blocking foods like breakfast cereals and canned goods from getting to grocery stores.

While leaders of commodity groups are already negotiating a deal for farmers with the new Conservative government they say they need farmers to show their faces at rallies to prove how important the risk management program is for the industry.

Grassroots farmers and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture members are working the phones in hopes that thousands of farmers will be at the Feb. 14 rally at the OMAFRA head office in Guelph. Some farmers have talked about blocking traffic. Others openly say they don’t care if they get arrested. A larger protest of 5,000 or more and a convoy of tractors is expected at the Department of Agriculture’s head office, the Sir John Carling building, in Ottawa Feb. 21. There are 21,000 corn producers in Ontario.

“One week ago I didn’t think we had the appetite for another kick at the cat,” said Joe Hickson of Midnight Acres, near Lindsay. But after 10 hours on the phone and answering e-mails Feb. 3 he said that rally fatigue isn’t about to stop farmers from continuing demonstrations. Without government assistance to match U.S subsidies and level the playing field, there will be an exodus of farmers this spring, he said. “For some it will be a forced exodus.”

North Gower crop farmer Dwight Foster is also spending long hours on the phone to mobilize the troops. “One individual told me, ‘tell me when and where and I bring you 500 people.’”

“There’s absolutely no future without the risk management program,” Foster told a group of 30 farmer activists at a hastily called meeting at a Winchester restaurant the day before.

He said they’ve given the federal government until March 7 to accept the risk management program.  Otherwise, “all hell will break lose,” said Don Kenny, Ontario Corn Producers’ Association director for region 2, hinting that desperate people resort to desperate measures. “We’ve got a fight on our hands.”

If no support comes, “there will only be half of us in this room next year,” Foster said. “Wouldn’t it be a shame if it was our generation that lost the farm?”

 “If we don’t have results before the spring the numbers of farmers who will exit this business will be huge, especially in western Ontario,” Foster said, noting that Ontario appears to have taken the brunt of the injury.

Corn producers are entering the fifth year of depressed crops prices. Bankers are telling farmers not to plant corn this year, Foster said.