Agriculture at the Border: Canada-US Trade Relations in the Global Food Regime

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University. He
is the author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable
Kingdom and The History of Fort St. Joseph, and the co-author of
Invisible and Inaudible in Washington: American

A group of scholars—eight of them residents of Canada, five of the
United States—contributed papers on cross-border trade in farm and
ranch commodities when the Association of Canadian Studies in the United
States met in Minneapolis in November 1997. Their papers evolved into
essays for this book, devoted largely to the trade in grain and beef.
This is hardly surprising given that four of the authors reside in
Saskatchewan, while the five Americans live in the two states bordering
Saskatchewan. (Three of the Canadians hail from Guelph, one from Laval.)
The cover describes the authors as “prominent agricultural economists
with extensive policy and industry experience on both sides of the
border.” They use charts and statistical tables to make their
well-documented points.

One major (and understandable) concern is the decline in farm incomes.
Suggestions include larger-than-usual harvests with the law of supply
and demand coming into play, as well as problems with Asian economies.
Decreased purchasing power in Asia’s most prosperous countries has
resulted in a decline in the capacity of Asian consumers to purchase
North American products. The reduction of transportation subsidies from
the Canadian government has hurt producers on both sides of the border.
With their disappearance, Canadian farmers have found themselves at a
competitive disadvantage with their more heavily subsidized European and
American counterparts. The immediate solution appeared to be finding
customers closer to home (across the border in the United States), but
that created a new set of problems in Montana and North Dakota. U.S.
grain handlers could not cope with the increased volume of business, and
American farmers complained of the lack of access to their own system.

At the same time, the 1988 Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the
United States has led to increased sales of Canadian grain, beef, and
pork on the U.S. market. Another advantage for Canadians has been their
low dollar. American farmers have found reasons for further complaints.

There are no conclusions or general recommendations, but the book does
have an index.