I've thought the same thing, I live in a small town and when I travel out to the country and see small houses actually shacks (their pickup truck is bigger) my mind spins.
Agriculture sounds innocent enough but living in such an environment I know it's not that simple. It's seasonal which is at the moment a huge problem the Canadian government has with seasonal workers in isolated areas. People get government assistance aka employment insurance or "EI" in Canadian-ese but the government has closed down the offices people go to apply and made it web based, baffling non-techy 60 year-olds. Now "EI cops" are making unannounced visits to these rural areas to make sure they people on EI are looking for work...but where?!
Anyway it's an age-old situation, the people make our food live in the middle of nowhere get pennies per ton and when they need money the government and city dwellers sneer at them.
Admittedly, at the same time Big Farming are just the same kind of bastards as any other large manufacturing or resource-extraction capitalist titans, and are often receiving very nice breaks from the government.
826, "Farms by Size and Type of Organization" is probably the more interesting report.
There is some room at the top for your cartoon owners there, but the typical farm, by acreage and number, is a medium sized place (still hundreds of acres) that is closely held by a family.
The USA calls subsidies a different name but they're still subsidies especially sugar and corn crops. It's do as I say not as I do even if the rules are broken, but it's no shock coming from the US.
NAFTA supposedly has wording about subsidies but the US often denies it I am just going by what I hear since living in an agricultural region you hear this stuff since birth even if you're not a farmer or fisherman.
Agriculture sounds innocent enough but living in such an environment I know it's not that simple. It's seasonal which is at the moment a huge problem the Canadian government has with seasonal workers in isolated areas. People get government assistance aka employment insurance or "EI" in Canadian-ese but the government has closed down the offices people go to apply and made it web based, baffling non-techy 60 year-olds. Now "EI cops" are making unannounced visits to these rural areas to make sure they people on EI are looking for work...but where?!
Anyway it's an age-old situation, the people make our food live in the middle of nowhere get pennies per ton and when they need money the government and city dwellers sneer at them.