| SUBSCRIBE MARKETS WEATHER LINKS HOME |
|
The Hill
Are the demands too great on our farm leadership?The current exodus of key people may be a sign that the pressures on agricultural leaders may be too much and the rewards too little by BARRYWILSON For more than a quarter century, Wayne Easter has experienced first-hand what a grind it is to be a front-line agricultural lobbyist on Parliament Hill. Today, it has never been more so as solutions to farm income, market power and trade issues seem to be stalled, if not receding. The hours are long. The files are many and complex. Politicians and bureaucrats are distracted and, increasingly, Canada’s farmers look at the farm groups and leaders they fund as part of the problem. They hear about trips to Ottawa or Geneva, see few concrete results and wonder if they are getting value for money. These days, farmers are as likely to turn their frustration on their farm leaders as they are on the politicians whose farm program models are failing or market leaders and forces that oversee a system which funnels rich profits to all other links in the food chain and a pittance to farm producers. “It is a tough grind,” says Easter, a 13-year veteran MP, Prince Edward Island farmer, Liberal agriculture critic and, before the House of Commons, a long-time activist and president of the National Farmers Union. “From the perspective of the farm lobby, it’s a frustrating game dealing with a bureaucracy that too often is a problem, dealing with mainstream media that usually seem numb to the issues and dealing with a vast array of issues,” he said from his P.E.I. constituency in late summer. “It’s a tough job.” There may be a limited connection between the pressures of the job and the exodus happening this autumn in the key farm leadership positions in Ottawa but it makes a person wonder. Are the demands too great? Are the rewards too little? Leading the exodus is Brigid Rivoire, executive director of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) and a veteran of the Agriculture Canada bureaucracy before she joined the CFA in 2001. It is a tough job balancing provincial demands with limited budgets and expanding files and she has juggled it successfully. But these are tough times for the CFA. Not to put too fine a point on it, the federation has not been treated by the new Conservative government as the essential farm group to be consulted before a new policy is designed and announced. Rivoire’s replacement has a tough political row to hoe, satisfying unhappy members and a government that doesn’t consider it the key, authentic farm voice. Meanwhile, Grain Growers of Canada is losing executive director Christine Moran to Agriculture Canada after only a year on the job. And the free trade lobby, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, is losing long-time executive director Patty Townsend and likely will see president Liam McCreery step down this autumn. There will be replacements, but Easter says the loss of veteran lobbyists always has an impact. “We meet the political leadership of the farm organizations on a regular basis, but when our offices want detail or daily consultations, we deal with the national staff,” he says. “You build relationships with these people and when they move on, at least for a while until we establish new relationships, it’s a loss to the effectiveness of the communications.”
With the farm community trying to get a handle on the new Conservative government, the loss of a generation of Ottawa farm lobby veterans can’t help but complicate matters. BF Barry Wilson is a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery specializing in agriculture.
|