Ontario farm groups finalize long-term vision for agriculture

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario farm and processor leaders are finalizing a document outlining their long-term vision for agriculture.

The Ontario food strategy document sketches out where the agricultural industry “feels it needs to go to make sure that we are economically viable and prosperous going forward,” says Keith Currie, Ontario Federation of Agriculture executive member and zone director for Simcoe, York and Peel counties. He represents the federation on the presidents’ council, which is developing the document along with David Sparling, chair of Agri-Food Innovation and Regulation at the Western University’s Richard Ivey School of Business.

The strategy covers 25 to 30 years “and what we feel we need, at least at this point in time, to maintain agriculture’s viability in Ontario,” Currie says.

The document has so far been circulated to members of the presidents’ council. It will come up again at the council meeting in September for refinement. The document will eventually be released publicly.

The presidents’ council, a group of presidents (or their representatives) from commodity groups and processors, has been developing the document for about two years. Lorne Small, president of the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, says Premier and Agriculture Minister Kathleen Wynne is very focused on industries getting their long term targets in place and then working towards them and “that’s given the whole process a bit of a push.”

On June 27, a small group of council members met with Premier Wynne and Ontario agriculture ministry officials to discuss the strategy.

Small says the document “is really an attempt to try and focus people’s vision on the longer term.”

The industry needs to concentrate on where it’s going 20 years from now “and head towards that target,” he says.

Ontario needs a food strategy document because “if you’re going to provide some leadership in the agricultural industry you have to have a vision as to where you want to go,” Small explains.  

Currie says the Canadian Federation of Agriculture has a national food strategy, to which the OFA contributed.

While the provincial food strategy was being developed, Currie says he was trying to keep the two strategies aligned. “My emphasis in particular was to make sure that as much as we need the processors and retailers to be on board, we still need to make sure we look after the people behind the farm gate too. That was captured.”

The document also delves into the economics of agriculture and how key the industry is to Ontario, he says. “As people focus on how Ontario agriculture is driving the economy here, how do we enhance that going forward?” BF