A little before Christmas, I joined the very witty General Manager of CoopPlus, Dany Côté, whose agricultural cooperative covers the wide expanse of the Mauricie, as he conducted “la roule”. What is “la roule” you say, well it’s an old French expression that is still used today in Charlevoix, and means to make the county rounds to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Stopwatch in hand, by necessity, throughout the day we met eight families involved in dairy production. Good people. Some were young, some old, with lots of Pierre-Lucs, Claudes, Daniels, Guys and a few Claires. A bright bunch of people filled with unintentional poetry. When I returned I was quite moved.

As we got to the farms we were always welcomed with open hearts and kind words - first from the founding parents proudly giving us a tour of their hard-earned success - then the next generation, a little standoffish yet very respectful filled with their own hopes of building their dreams.

Shortly thereafter a church-step conversation begins: it’s hard to make milk this year, you know. We’re late making our production goals on account of mediocre fodder. Cows ‘break’ right in the middle of their productive cycle. Plus there’s the cost of energy: the latest bill was pretty high. No, Mister Lafleur, this hasn’t been a good year. Costs are rising much faster than our incomes. 

As I listened to them I soon realized that they worked too hard. Labour is demanding in addition to being very hard to come by. One thing is certain, they’re as strong as bulls – no pun intended - to work 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.

With timidity falling by the wayside, the conversation naturally turned to larger concerns and a few “messages for those in high places”: it’s clear to see how our cooperatives have improved over the recent past, but you need to keep on working even harder for us. And steer clear of those power struggles between unionism and cooperation, it’s upsetting. And by the way, why not join forces instead of multiplying them, because we end up paying for it all.

Messages received.

And finally THE question everyone has been waiting for: so Mr Lafleur, what do you think is going to happen with the WTO? What’s in it for us? I am struck silent. What can I say?

Allow me to vent a little! I despise the moral pretentiousness of our mate from the University of Saskatchewan, Mr Charlebois, as well as those economists from the Montreal Economic Institute, and those WTO pencil pushers who, unlike me, have rock-solid, ready-made seen through rose-coloured glasses answers: globalization creates wealth – can’t you see that – you bunch of ignorant nincompoops? This may be true, but it’s only a half truth. I know that the other half is starving. Bottom line is that these people get on my nerves. There… I feel better now!

However, there is hope and its name is Momagri. Imagine, since 2006, and under the umbrella of large French cooperatives, there is a group of economists working day and night to build a forecasting model that, surprise, respects agricultural specificity. Some 6,000 equations take into account much more than just supply and demand, they also consider other variables that are specific to agriculture: Mother Nature’s whims, the extreme unpredictability of prices, the unfair test of strength, and the significant level of capitalization required and fixed production assets that are hard to separate.

After entering the numbers into the computer, there is one simple, mathematically proven conclusion that we’ve all intuitively known for a long time: an open, global free market, without any kind of regulation, will never afford a decent living for farmers. That’s it, that’s all. 

The people from Momagri will attend La Coop fédérée’s general meeting next February and share their findings. They aren’t against the market system, nor are they against trade exchanges, but there needs to be reasonable regulation. Their message will be clear: the claim of the classic forecasting model currently used by the WTO is based on myth because the basic hypothesis on which it is founded isn’t any good!

How do we join this cooperative group? Do they sell membership cards?