Public Policy in the 21st Century: Is Prairie Agriculture Becoming Like Any Other Industry? Does it Matter?

The question addressed in this paper is whether Prairie agriculture has become "like any other industry". The implication is that a positive response would lead to the conclusion that it should therefore be treated "like any other industry" rather than being accorded the special status that it has enjoyed for more than a century
We show that, as net farm incomes have declined over the past 35 years, Prairie farmers have responded by seeking other (non-farm) sources of income. At the time of the 1996 census, net farm income accounted for only 31 percent of farm family income (down from 75 percent in 1967). By 1999, the contribution of net farm income was even lower than in 1996
In spite of the dwindling contribution of net farm income to farm family income, average farm family income in Saskatchewan has exceeded average provincial household income for all but two years between 1971 and 1998, Under these circumstances, it is necessary to ask why it is in the public interest to subsidize an activity which, in recent good times, produced 31 percent of the income of a subset of the population whose household incomes were 10–15 percent above the provincial average
Based on income levels, it is probably no longer necessary to accord farm families special status in the public policy arena. However, other policy considerations (immobility of resources, the role of agriculture in the rural economy, environmental considerations, food safety and security, for example) remain, differentiating agriculture from other industries