by SUSAN MANN
Ontario’s farming and agri-food industry is getting help in meeting Premier Kathleen Wynne’s goal of creating 120,000 new jobs and doubling the sector’s growth rate by 2020.
On Thursday at the Premier’s annual Summit on Agri-Food, Wynne announced the creation of a new Growth Steering Committee to be co-chaired by Deb Stark, deputy agriculture, food and rural affairs minister, and Amy Cronin, Ontario Pork chair.
The committee will identify and pursue future opportunities and design a growth measurement system, according to an Ontario agriculture ministry press release issued Nov. 27. It will bring together industry and government leaders and experts to identify opportunities to help the industry meet the growth and job creation challenge Wynne issued at last year’s summit.
Supporting growth and innovation in the province’s agri-food industry is part of the government’s economic plan for Ontario, the release says.
Bryan Bossin, senior press and communications adviser to Ontario Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Minister Jeff Leal, says by email one of the first jobs of the committee will be to identify priority growth projects. The committee will report its progress and next steps at the Premier’s summit next year.
The agriculture ministry will support the committee by providing technical information and expertise “to guide members as they pursue opportunities for growth in the agri-food sector,” Bossin says.
Newly elected Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Don McCabe says “it’s vitally important that we continue to focus on growth in this province. Growth is absolutely vital in the agricultural industry. When you’re the number one sector (in Ontario) and everybody else globally is continuing to move on, we cannot afford to stop and relax.”
McCabe says in his opinion focusing on growth includes:
- Removing barriers to bring in new processing into Ontario.
- Bringing new market developments for the farm.
- Remove undue and unnecessary regulations at both the farm level and through the entire agri-food system.
As for how achievable the Premier’s goal is for the sector, McCabe says, “sometimes you have to put a goal out there just to see what you can do with it.”
Leal says in an email forwarded by his press and communications adviser “I believe we can achieve these ambitious targets if we work together.” BF
Comments
One of the first places to start will be getting rid of SM if Gov truely wants to expand our exports . We are an export nation are we not ?
When, three decades ago, the "Red Rocker", Sammy Hagar, wailed - "one foot on the brake and one on the gas, Hey, there's too much traffic, I can't pass", he could have been singing about the present-day schizophrenia of Canadian and/or Ontario agricultural policy.
About the only jobs created by a system as schizophrenic and as uncomprehending as ours, are so-called "drag" jobs, like those of the Farm Products Marketing Commission which administers the needless, and net-negative systems we refuse to, and need to, give up if we truly want to create new jobs not dependent on legislation for their very existence.
For example, McCabe seems to not realize, and/or wants to ignore, that new processing capacity for dairy products in Ontario isn't going to happen because the price-gouging scourge of supply management has created a declining primary demand for milk and dairy products - therefore, the supply managed dairy sector isn't going to create even one additional job by 2020, and if anything, is going to see the disappearance of existing jobs - score: reality 1, Wynne 0
In addition, when McCabe bemoans excessive regulations affecting agriculture, he seems to forget that an undue amount of time, effort and money spent by, for example, the Farm Products Marketing Commission is devoted to regulating the wretched excesses of supply management, trying to decide on carton sizes of milk or whether people can transfer dairy quota from one farm to another, both of which would be completely-uncessary if supply management was simply abolished. Score: reality 2, Wynne 0.
Sigh! - all that potential wasted on yet another futile effort to re-upholster the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
One of the biggest things that will hurt job growth in Agriculture is the fact of more farmers and companies going to a more mechanized way of doing things . Be it robots or just machines it is the way of the future . The only REAL growth we will see in jobs related to agriculture will come in the form of people enforcing the many more regulations that agriculture will see .
As to Mr. Thompson and his Reality /Wynne score keeping . With the new or current selection of farm leaders the score will soon be Wynne 100 , Reality Agriculture 0 . We are set to be pounded like never before .
Post new comment