Wellllll....it is more than just Quebec that makes maple syrup...
the Eastern provinces and Ontario have Sugar Maple trees... and there are plenty of individual farms that make their own and sell it as well...
But yeah... maple syrup is worth it's weight...literally ...
as far as price fixing...or cartels go...
a marketing board for wheat, milk, syrup , whatever...
isn't there to "keep the prices up" ...
it is there to make sure that fair pricing is in effect and to protect the livelihood of the farmers...
when that protection disappears...
the legitimate farmers do too...
plain and simple...
dropping the price of food is good for the consumer...
but frankly the cost is borne completely by the farmers..
so the fact is...pay what it costs to safely grow it...
you'll get good value and a product that hasn't had corners cut or unknown sprays, herbicides or pesticides used.
protect the farmers...
they feed everyone.
That is my view (having grown up a farm boy) on "cartels"...

Ice wine is tasty... but it is pure hype frankly...
we grow some of the finest wines in the world now...
and as far as other addictives go...
our cigarettes are amoungst the smoothest.
As far as "cheapest" goes... well I am sure there are plenty of things elsewhere... that are cheaper than here...
hardly relevant in my opinion...
things are more or less expensive depending on the value of the currency of where one is from in compare to Canada's....
so it is purely relative ..

^-- That post is living proof, if one was needed at all, that there is no such thing as universal truth.

Whenever I hear about "fair pricing" and "protecting the livelihood" of one group or another, my immediate question is why does someone feel that the prices need protecting. Clearly someone can produce the product - be it maple syrup, bananas or mobile phones - cheaper.

You say the price fixing helps the farmers who, for one reason or another, cannot produce it cheaper.

I say it helps those who can produce it cheaper even more. Thus, far from reducing the gap between those two, it widens it. On top of that, price fixing diminishes any incentive to increase efficiency, with all the detrimental effects on productivity, economy and ecology.

Well said, but on the other hand there needs to be farmers/producers who care about the quality, ecology and sustainability, all which make producing more expensive.

This relates to consumer electronics too; nowdays almost everything is produced in the low-cost countries behind smokescreens that hide the fact that the materials are of questionable origin and workers are underpaid and suffering.

Consumers want it all cheap, only small percentage of people are willing to pay more for better quality, openness, safety and fair-trade.

There needs to be some sort of governmental regulation that suppresses the shameless exploiters, to level the ground for those that do not bend the rules.

I agree but I do not think price fixing is the answer. I do not know what is but educating the customer, explaining where the price difference comes from, should IMO play a part.

Regarding fair pricing. There is the Fairtrade movement, allegedly to guarantee fair prices for farmers. Through years of conditioning, I have learned to expect that "fair" means "more expensive". But there is a paradox: Fairtrade produce is not more expensive than equivalent produce without the Fairtrade mark, at least not in the British supermarkets. How so? The skeptic in me is inclined to conclude that either the "fair" trade is not as fair to the farmers as it is purported to be or that the non-Fairtrade producers have increased their own prices accordingly. Either way, Fairtrade ultimately benefits the exploiters more than the farmers it is nominally aimed to protect.

I'll say this only once.
I LIVED through what happens when corporations destroy the protection that keeps farmers safe.
During the farmer protests of the 70's and 80's ...
because protection in subsidy and keeping the farmers afloat was being dismantled across the country at the insistence of american interest (though the americans never removed their subsidies ..which are still there...) with our free trade agreements...
The result is this.
We had farmers going bust ...
I went to my neighbours auctions...
selling EVERYTHING they could for what they could get before the banks came in taking everything...
it was bad.
What ensued was now the status quo.
We have few farmers left.
a few holdouts..
and hobby farms...

What we have are production facilities...
Warehouses ...not barns... filled with livestock that never sees the sun ...
fed minimally...poorly cared for... pumped full of god knows what.
a wretched life for both animal and "operational attendant" (the new farmer)

Coupled with this new situation...
we had corporations which came in...
Like McCains ... they prey on farmers...
what they do to farmers is.. offer them good pay for growing produce ...so it appears...
the thing is...
they give the farmer the seed...
the fertiliser...
the pesticide and herbicides...
just grow the food for them...
if there is an excess...it must be destroyed...
if there is a shortfall...
you owe them...
your farm.
then if you are lucky they hire you back to work what once was yours...

Our farm was no different than any other...
we did all we could to keep ours...


Please do not speak to me or blather about what you know nothing about until you've lived it.
Whatever political or social , or philosophy or wikipedia articles or whatever slanted or biased or just as equally ignorant article mean absolutely nothing when dealing with the reality first hand.
As a consequence ...north america now has only 1 ... count them ... 1 canning plant... We produce next to nothing....literally... and we are completely at the mercy of practices and standards which are sketchy at best....
THAT is the result of the undermining of the agricultural base ...for corporate profit and the result of everyone wanting their food cheaper.
Tell me how good that cheap food is from ..wherever....
when your family starts getting sick from it.

Protecting the farmers is protecting your food supply...
protecting and safeguarding what goes into your mouth and your children's mouths

I'm done on this topic.

I dont want to get into your farmer discussion since I know very little about farming.

What about a hockey puck? That must be cheaper than in the rest of the world.

I'm sure asia can produce artificial maple syrup, ice wine and hockey pucks far cheaper ...and include a logo saying "Made in Canda" for you Dave.

Marple siryp is not for me. I dont think humans of our time need to add extra suger in anything really.

I have had LOTs ice wine during My days @planet earth, but might have to opt in for One more bottle...

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5002178

I am sincerely sorry if I touched a chord. That was not my intention. Life can be cruel and capitalism doubly so.

I would just like to propose that:

• Personal experience is no guarantee of objectivity.
• If someone can produce something cheaper than you it does not necessarily mean that it is "artificial" or even of lesser quality. It often does but it is by no means a given.
• If someone can produce something cheaper than you then the problem is with you, not them.

I am not talking about individual producers, whether agricultural or industrial. They operate in a certain environment that effects how cheap they can be and they cannot easily escape that. I am talking about the Western society at large. We have built ourselves a society that cannot compete with East Asia, or even large corporations in our own backyard. In other words, we live above our means and need to wake up and reduce our expectations. From time to time, a wakeup call comes in the shape of a farm in Canada or a steel factory in England going bankrupt. It is painful to live through that and I fear it is only the start. Unfortunately, it is only painful for those directly affected. The rest of us just trundle on, preferring not to see it until it hits us too. And it will, sooner or later.

Back to cartels and price fixing. Imagine you can produce a gallon of maple syrup for $30 but your neighbour, a large industrial farm, for $20. Obviously the big farm is pushing the prices down. You and your other small farm friends lobby for protection and the price is fixed at $30. So now you barely break even but for the big farm, the fixed price is net profit. Who really benefits from the protection?

This isn't a case of my personal experience colouring or biasing ...
It wasn't just personal...
I watched my neighbours sinking too.
A whole bloody nation of farmers sink..
So that view you can chuck on the fire...

The social experiment has already been conducted....
it started almost 50 years ago here...
the results are in.
What has been done cannot easily be undone without at least the same amount of time put in rebuilding the infrastructure...
your pondering and questions about protectionism vs free market are moot and pointless here in North America.
The damage is done... the process was started half a century ago here.
What is being dealt with now is purely the result. The fallout. Nothing more.
Whatever marketing boards that still exist to protect whatever farmers still exist should indeed stay in place...
If an asian, african, or south american country can produce the products cheaper...with all the cost cutting automation and machinery of the west at hand not able to compete...
don't aim at the North American farmer as being the problem...
rather look at the environmental practices , the use of banned and dangerous herbicides, pesticides, fertilisers, and labour practices abhorred by the civilised world...AND whose own governments subsidise them while conducting a political war to dismantle their neighbouring country's agricultural base... as a good enough culprit.

Aiming at farmers here who struggle to feed and clothe their own children and pay their mortgages ...so to bring produce to your table...as some kind of cartel that is out to gouge the consumer or using a very crude club and saying "if they can't compete ...they must be the problem" is simplistic at best and low at worst.