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Submission by the National Farmers Union to the Comprehensive Development Plan for Prince Edward Island
Publisher: National Farmers Union ProjectYear Published: 1981 Pages: 84pp Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX2290 The National Farmers Union (NFU) evaluates, criticizes and makes recommendations on the Comprehensive Development Plan for P.E.I. in this submission. Abstract: The National Farmers Union (NFU) evaluates, criticizes and makes recommendations on the Comprehensive Development Plan for P.E.I. in this submission. The Development Plan, initiated in 1969, has passed through Phases 1 and 2. The Plan according to the NFU submission, "was envisaged to vastly expand agricultural production" which would have the effect of spreading benefits to all sectors of the Island economy. The NFU, in evaluating the Plan, holds firm to the beliefs that "all people have the right to live in dignity and to share in the prosperity of society", and that equalization payments to the less privileged from the affluent are really only "pain relievers, not cures". The NFU feels that the Plan fails to determine the root cause of the economic ills on the Island. The Farmers Union then criticizes the Plan for leading to increase individual competition which serves to increase the distance between the haves and the have-nots. The Plan does nothing, the Union says, to give farmers assistance in prohibiting rising land prices or gaining a stable market price for their goods. Recommendations made by the NFU include the creation of a Canadian Potato Marketing Board to ensure stable prices for potatoes and other vegetables as well as efforts to lobby the provincial government to act to prohibit ownership of agricultural lands by corporations. This last recommendation is aimed at slowing the rising cost of land prices so that the price of land may reflect more closely its value for agricultural use. Subject Headings |