Angry in the Great White North

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion is just trying to help.  But really, he ought to do his research first.  Switching to ginseng is a mistake:

Federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion says the Harper government should be ashamed of itself for raising false hopes of a quota buyout in tobacco country.

Were the Liberals in power, Dion said his party would have handled the issue much differently.

"The first thing you do is not come with broken promises as the Conservatives have done," he said during a whistle-stop visit Saturday to a large greenhouse operation east of Dunnville. "I will not come like the Conservatives with false hopes."

Dion said a Liberal solution would include transition assistance to other types of farming. He cited ginseng as an alternative crop that holds promise.

See, the problem is this.  Too many people are producing ginseng.  There is a glut on the market, with overproduction driving down prices in causing a great deal of financial distress for ginseng farmers:

Wisconsin produces 95 per cent of the ginseng grown in the U.S., with 200 farmers producing about 270,000 kilograms of ginseng annually. B.C. farmers produce about 360,000 kilograms a year, while Ontario produces 1.8 million kilograms.

B.C. produced about 1.1 million kilograms of ginseng in 1994, but global overproduction forced prices down, so production dropped.

Schellenberg said Chinese production of North American ginseng species has increased in recent years, which continues to drive prices down.

But Weege warned that Chinese ginseng producers have much lower labour costs than North American growers.

"If they mislabel their product and put prices down where it just blows us out of the market, what can we do about that?" he said. "We'll be cooked, and you guys will be cooked too."

Got that?  Ontario is already a huge producer in a market that has more than enough product.

And Stephane Dion is suggesting that these struggling farmers try to save their livelihoods by adding even more ginseng to the market!

Existing ginseng farmers trying to make a go of it despite low ginseng prices probably wouldn't appreciate all these new ginseng farmers entering the market with generous taxpayer-funded help thanks to Stephane Dion.

Of course the Dion's Liberals would have handled this problem differently.  They would have made it much worse.

Hat tip to reader Leasa.