'We can definitely talk louder'

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

by SUSAN MANN

If Canada’s agriculture minister isn’t hearing enough that Ontario farmers need market insurance programs to help farmers deal with market risks “we can definitely talk louder and be more visible,” says Bette Jean Crews, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

Crews’ comment comes on the heels of Gerry Ritz’s announcement last week that the federal government has no intention of fundamentally changing federal provincial agricultural business risk management programs in the short term. Ritz made the comments on Friday following the conclusion of the semi-annual meeting of federal, provincial and territorial agriculture ministers.

The federation is also a member of the Ontario Agriculture Sustainability Coalition, a group of provincial general farm, livestock and commodity organizations that is pushing for the adoption of market insurance programs for Ontario farmers.

Crews says she isn’t concerned by Ritz’s comments because the province’s farmers are asking for enhancements and not significant changes. The improvements the federal government made to current business risk management programs are good, she adds.

But will the province’s farmers have any real input into the design of the next round of programs to replace the current round which expire in 2013? That’s the concern of Henry Stevens, president of the Christian Farmers Federation of Agriculture, another member of the Sustainability Coalition.

Previously, consultations on the federal policy framework have involved inviting selected leaders to a meeting “and basically the government folks have already decided the way it’s going to be,” Stevens explains, adding farmers are there to offer their thoughts but they don’t change anything.

Stevens says the federal government needs to hear more from grass roots farmers, who must be given the opportunity to comment on new program designs, which Ritz has said are in the early stages.

Stevens says he’s not concerned that Ritz won’t commit to substantially changing the current round of business risk management programs.

It’s more important for the Ontario agricultural industry to “get what we need for 2013,” he says. “That’s where our focus needs to be.” 

Stevens says the next steps for the coalition is to meet with Ontario Agriculture Minister Carol Mitchell so she can update members and then “we’ll talk together about where we go from here.” But he doesn’t know when those meetings will be held. BF