Farmer and I hold ongoing informal debates on whether or not men PMS. He insists that if it I wasn’t PMSing, I’d never take offence to what he says.

My rebuttal: “If you could just hear yourself...”

Recently he took one look at supper and freaked. A halved Zucchini stuffed with onions and spiced hamburger, topped with sauce; side of potatoes.

“I work hard all day and I want something NORMAL for supper....” is an excerpt from his tirade. He was mad. Once he’d tasted supper the complaint vanished but the damage was done.

I work hard all day too and if he wanted normal he chose the wrong debating partner and entirely forgotten we were on the same cotton picking team.

PMS-like symptoms in farming men are likely common about this time of year. Inducing conditions that day were perfect: 27 C temperature and Farmer covered in barley chaff on his last day combining that crop and ready to start wheat but scheduled to return (the following day) to “work” after four straight days of harvest.

Market driven agriculture is currently controlled by huge Agri-business companies who both set prices of input costs and determine what you get for your grain per bushel at the end of the day. Crunch the numbers from both ends and you will find: “farmers’ profits from the marketplace, in aggregate, since 1985, equal zero...The only other period of sustained low net farm income in the past century was the Great Depression – a time of drought, unemployment and economic collapse.”

Not only that but simultaneously, “other players in the agri-food chain have been recording record-high profits,” including three of the big players: Monsanto, Agrium and John Deere. Let’s not forget the banks who finance this take over.

Of course the government has various farm income stabilization programs that ensure the market price stays low by subsidizing it from all Canadian tax payers to the tune of $8,000 per Canadian family, or “67 billion since the mid-1980’s.” Thanks to Darrin Qualman for the number crunching in his expose: “Advancing Agriculture by Destroying Farms? The State of Agriculture in Canada.”

Heard governments talk about doing what’s right for the economy? How much rope will they give themselves before admitting the experiment of global economics has failed for everyone except multinationals? Does this make me a communist?

PMS? Perhaps a little constructive rage is necessary about now.