The National Farmcrs' Union of Canada has been ,conducting a boycott of the products of Kraft Corporation since late this summer. The boycott has since been reduced to products from Kraft's 'rnain non-unionized plants and does not include unionized subsidiaries such as Sealtest.

The boycott is being conducted as an effort by farm’ers, in thts case dairy farmers. to gain collective bargaining rights and establish their right to have some control of their products; as opposed to having food controlled by large cor- porate interests like Kraft.

The boycott has meant demonstrations at Kraft ilants and various grocery chains across the country. It also is a campaign directed at reaching and communicating with the urban population of Canada to try and get support for their struggle which deals with needs common to everybody (whether they be from urban or rural 'milieus) —— the production and distribution of food. ’

The following is an interview with the national boycott coordinator for the NFU. Don Kossich:

CUP: Why do farmers want toboycott Kraft? KOSSICK: To understand that, yod‘have to have a background on what has been going on In rural Canada. To try and put it as straight as possible, farmers at the moment In Canada are powerless in any decisions that are being made In what happens in agriculture.

For example. they have no control over the price of their products, can’t establish any price on that product. The price is established by Agra-business rather than themselves.

Agro-business are those Involved In the marketing and processing of food. They control the prices, and the farmer has to take what they put forward. Because of that we

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have over 2/3 of the farmers geared up to be forced off the land In the next 10 to 15 years. We are losing a thousand farmers a month right now. The average age of the farmer is 3 years.

I would like to point out that since farmers

‘ have no control over their product, they also

have no control over government policy, because it is government that decides what

happens to food. They decide how it is

marketed and produced. This is done in league with Agro-business corporations.

From that situation, farmers have been trying to organize to create a situation where they can have some-say over what happens to their product, and essentially what happens to the economic situation of their land and what comes back to them at the farm level. More specifically, farmers and the farm population have no control over government policy which decides what is going to happen to agriculture in the next 10 or 15 years, and they have no control at all over their product. . .This means the prices that they get for that product. In a situation like this the farmer will obviously have a low income and a great possibility of being thrown off the land. The point is, are we going to do anything about it?

Well, now farmers are starting to do something about it and that is why we are having the Kraft boycott.

Dairymen in Ontario took a very conscious decision that in order to stabilize their income and to have some kind of security for the next 10 to 15 years, they must have some control over their product and some control over agriculture. The two main groups that they have to deal with are the Government which makes the policy, and the corporation which establishes the price and the marketing condition.

The reason that we are boycotting Kraft then, is to be able to sit dowu and tell Kraft what we want for our product and how we want to see the pricing and marketing of that pi . :luct handled. What we want is a situation where we can decide, as farmers, the terms

_ and conditions under which food is produced,

processed and. marketed. That is essentially the fight we are in.

The boycott means very simply that we’re putting the pressure on Kraft so that we can, in fact, sit down with them and determine those conditions. Right now they have no

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recognition of farmers, and they have no belief in the farmers right to do that, so somehow our first step Is to establish that right. That is the frame work of our boycott of Kraft. If we can make a breakthrough'with Kraft, then we are in effect making a breakthrough with government and other Agro-business corporations. Once that is done a precedent is set for dealing with government and National Grain or any other business that Is involved as Agra-business; McCains for example, in the Maritimes.

CUP: But why Kraft? Why not either take on all of the companies, or another company, or go into something like a milk-withholding action? Why a v boycott of the Kraft Cor- poration?

KOSSICK: Kraft is a company that the dairymen have had to work with and recognize as a price-setter, and an organization which really does control markets and especially dairy. Kraft is the largest dairy monopoly in North America and it is very strong in 01tario. Ontario is a place where dairymen have been working very hard to establish some kind of situation where they can bargain collectively. Kraft is the biggest in the field and they took Kraft on.

They could have taken on a large number of Agra-businesses across the country at the same time, but In terms of resources, finance and strength, you can be much more effective concentrating on one group. Kraft has been more blatant in some ways in terms of con- trolling the dairy industry‘in Ontario. For

example. there used to be 500 cheese factories

in Ontario; now there are only 42.

Part of the process has been that Kraft has ~

had a situation where they control the Ontario Milk Marketing Board. By control I mean that they can have the Milk Marketing Board administer quotas in such a way that the quotas get passed on to groups like Kraft and away from co-operative cheese factories which in a lot of ways helped out the farmer more than a large corporation like Kraft. So Kraft is very intent on establishing a situation where they control dairy from the farm level right to the supermarket level.

We are taking them on because they are the ones that are leading the way in that type of process. If we don’t stop them we don't stop anybody. They are the Big Daddies. So our strategy has been to take on Kraft in Omtario where the base of dairymen is. By winning the right to collective bargaining with Kraft, the trend setter in the dairy industry, we feel that we will be making a big breakthrough.

CU P: How do you intend to develop your Kraft boycott? Are you working across Canada or regionally? ; . KOSSICK: Why a strategy such as a boycott in the first place? We feel that the production

of food, the use of food, and not only to I the farmers

population of Canada. It isl people In Canada to be able food at a price that they can such a price that both the pi

if and the person who is

benefit. . I It was in this light that boycott. We feel that havi economic Sledgehammer boycott, we get a chancel and other groups about w do and why we are doing it happened often, when c tried to secure certain righ establishment has done isolating them so that they who are only in there for not for the good of any through a boycott, we can to consumers and other intend to produce food of good price that both they get what they need. Through the boycott, we into cities and talk to the really going on in rural to understand that there it between both groups. We f positive than dumping milk. Those tactics of w would not win support consumers.

control the media, obvio up the Wasting of food a consumer and farmer at

sumer and the producer an that. ‘ We are trying to expoSe what theygare doing as 9‘ business structure in Carla boycott Is the most effectle and that’s what is 90'" powerful corporations "k We are intending to sumers by hitting certalf} Ontario and eventuallY " At these various centres Sarnia, Cornwall and | Edmonton, Moose Jaw, going into the supermarke to explain that farmers 3f right of collective bafga' themselves and for. the!r P