(May 26, 2008--LPAC) Globalization can only be defended by insane people, and has been driving other people insane, especially producers, like farmers in the Canadian province of Québec, according to a survey made by Ginette Lafleur, Ph. D. student at the euthanasia and suicide intervention research center of UQAM (University of Québec in Montréal).
Her survey showed that, out of 1338 participants, 76 said they thought of committing suicide, and half of 1338 said they thought they were in an advanced state of psychological distress, and 3 pork producers out of 4 are in distress. This is much higher than the Quebecers' general level of distress, which is 20%.
Pierrette Desrosiers, psychologist and speaker, who has practiced for 10 years among farmers, backs up Lafleur's conclusion. "Before, I almost had to pay to give conferences. Farm lobbies would tell me not to use words like 'stress' or to say I was a psychologist… But today, I'm overburdened by my work. Each week, I have to refuse 2 or 3 persons. Some will even drive for 5 hours to meet with me."
Because of globalization, farmers must go in debt in order to perform and compete on the world market, and to be able to survive when the price of fertilizers, pesticides, oil, etc is going through the roof. The average debt of a Quebec farm is $371,000, while it used to be $135,000 in 1996. This is because, since 1997, there has been an increase in the amount of land bought for farming, in order for farms to get bigger and get more financial help from the Government, and hopefully make ends meet.
Unlike what people might think, farmers aren't as rich as they used to be: the average net income of a farm is $20,000, which is very small for a family. But those families, on average, get 62% of their income from sources other than farming! It is then not surprising that, for the last ten years, 2 farmers per day quit farming.
While the farmer's family is being overworked and indebted, they are also becoming public enemy no.1, the big bad polluter hurting mother earth with their tractors and fertilizers, all thanks to the 1968 cultural paradigm-shift. Ginette Lafleur's study reveals that 3 quarters of pork producers and 1 third of dairy producers say they suffer from lack of recognition from the population. Some of the producers wrote to Lafleur that they felt that they were perceived as "disgusting people"; one of them admitted, "If it keeps going that way, I will have to put my health and my life in jeopardy in order to keep my pigs."
It is important to say that most of these facts are already known to the population, but is still taboo in rural communities. What is needed is for politicians and group leaders to endorse Helga's call, in order to show they are determined to save rural Canada and the food production from the follies of British Free-Trade.
