Predictably, the human cost for those involved is exhibited in increased levels of stress, family breakdown, domestic violence, alcohol abuse and even suicide. Saskatchewan has also seen a continuing loss of both farms and people. The causes of the crisis are many and complex but can be summarized as a combination of low farm prices and escalating costs propelled by continuing high interest rates. It has reinforced the power and enriched the lives of some and threatened the livelihood and impoverished the lives of many others. Since it is a human creation and a social rather than a natural fact, it lies within the realm of human choice.
Globalization is now a fundamental moral concern.
The net effect of this isolation and elevation of competitiveness as the dominant moral norm is to subordinate questions of social justice to questions of economic efficiency. This concept took shape when poor people and peasants applied the idea of the communal good to economic transformations confronting them, including the enclosure system and the industrial revolution. Lind sees farm rallies as giving voice to the insistence that there is a link between morals and the economy. They were trying to give voice to the moral economy that gave meaning to their lives and livelihood. While finding hope in movements that oppose globalization and its effects, Lind says that this is a limited response.