When Prime Minister Paul Martin went politicking to Trenton a farm tractor belonging to Picton’s Lloyd Crowe was standing in the Prime Minister’s parking space. Farmers buttonholed Tim Murphy, the prime minister’s chief of staff, and presented their case.

When the Trenton meeting was over, Joe Hickson from the Kawartha Lakes followed the Prime Minister’s cavalcade to Peterborough where he says a mountie spotted him and "I got the royal boot."

He says the fight for a safety net is only starting, though. "We’re going to have to see a pile of farmers step up to the plate. If we don’t keep up the pressure, we will lose the fight," he says.

During the election campaign the "unified voice," involving most commodity and farm lobby groups, has been crowding into political meetings and forcing political hopefuls to face the agricultural crisis in the province. "We want a new risk management program," says Lloyd Crowe, a director of the Ontario corn producer board.

gram down last summer saying it was too expensive.

So what will make the program more palatable now than last summer? Crowe says a countervail on corn has raised the profile of the farm income crisis on political agendas. In the second English language debate, all three leaders said that CAIS, a whole farm program, wasn’t working and the crisis had to be addressed.

How does the program work?

The program is a form of price protection. The farmer insures his expected crop for say $3.50 per bushel at a rate of two cents per bushel. If the average price for that crop period is $3.00 per bushel in his area, then he is paid $3.50. He is always guaranteed the amount for which he insured his crop. But if he does better than average selling his crop he still gets the same insurance payout as the neighbor who wasn’t as good at selling.

The insurance premium for our example on 100 acres of corn with an average long-term yield of 120 bushels per acre comes to about $240.