AGRI Committee Report

INTRODUCTION

Agriculture is a highly capital-intensive and competitive sector in which the risks are high and often unpredictable, the returns on investment low relative to those of other sectors and the influence an individual has on the price of his products marginal. And yet there are farmers who take up the challenge and accept those high risks because they are convinced agriculture is not only part of the foundation of the agri-food sector, but also the foundation of a country.

For a number of years now, agriculture has undergone shock after shock. The Agreement on Agriculture of the Uruguay Round, which was to make agricultural markets freer and to increase food prices, has not yet met all expectations, but has disrupted farmers’ operations and business decisions. In addition, new factors, such as ecological liability, biotechnology, market concentration and greater concern for food safety have arisen. As stewards of the land and entrepreneurs, farmers are ready to meet these new challenges, but they expect the government to play a role as partner and leader. This view of the government’s role is moreover shared by other stakeholders in the agri‑food sector.

When the Standing Committee began its consultation trip across Canada in February of this year, the national action plan for the creation of the Agricultural Policy Framework (APF) unveiled in Whitehorse on June 29, 2001, had just been discussed at the federal‑provincial-territorial conference of ministers of agriculture held in Toronto on January 24, 2002. It is therefore not surprising that the themes of the APF repeatedly came up in the discussions. The Standing Committee’s meetings showed that the concept of the APF, that is to say a concerted and comprehensive agricultural policy for a long-term strategy, is generally well perceived by Canadian farmers, but who is not in favour of virtue? In fact, one central message came out of the discussions: a new architecture for a long-term Canadian agricultural policy is needed, but that architecture must be flexible in order to be consistent with the diversity of the agricultural sectors and regions of Canada. For the government, that flexibility also means that its role sometimes amounts to simply being less present. Any new architecture must also acknowledge that farmers are the foundation of the sector, and it is imperative that that foundation be consolidated before a new structure is erected.

In addition to holding numerous meetings in Ottawa, the Standing Committee travelled from west to east and stopped in some 15 rural areas where its members met more than 350 witnesses. Some agricultural sectors and regions are doing better than others, but, as a result of the close interrelationships in agriculture, when a sector such as grains goes through an excessively long period of crisis, that can have long-term negative impact on the rural world as a whole. The government cannot allow a portion of the foundation to collapse without fearing that that will cause a crack in the structure as a whole.

This report is divided into eight chapters, which address the major themes that arose in the Committee’s meetings. Each chapter sets out the farmers’ major concerns and contains recommendations that reflect the solutions proposed by those who experience the agricultural reality on a daily basis. The result is thus an up-to-date vision of the needs of Canadian farmers.