by SUSAN MANN
There’s no doubt about it, Ontario’s farming industry makes a huge splash in the province’s economic pool.
A new study released at the Ontario Federation of Agriculture convention last month pegs expenditures by Ontario farmers at $11.8 billion. That generates $26.6 billion of economic activity throughout the province, according to the Economic Contribution of the Ontario Farm Sector report done by John Groenewegen of JRG Consulting Group.
The direct farm sector contributes $13.7 billion in province-wide value-added GDP, which is two per cent of Ontario’s GDP. Mark Wales, who was re-elected to his third consecutive term as federation president at the convention, says the entire industry is bigger than that “by the time you go from right before the field to the fork.”
The farm sector output contributed to an estimated 157,829 jobs throughout the Ontario economy. And all levels of government received $3.9 billion in tax revenue because of the farm sector output and associated economic activity, according to the report.
Neil Currie, federation general manager, says the report is an update of an earlier one done by Groenewegen in 2010. “The numbers were getting a little old. We wanted to refresh it,” he notes.
The numbers are bigger this time around but there weren’t any surprises in the report. It’s “basically showing how important farming is” to Ontario’s economy, he says.
The federation is using the study to show the Ontario government the economic impact of farming and agri-food. Currie says while he hasn’t seen the updated numbers for the auto industry, “we are saying agri-food is the biggest industry now” in Ontario.
With the designation as an economic engine for the province, Ontario Premier and Agriculture Minister Kathleen Wynne has challenged the agri-food industry to double its growth by 2020 and create 120,000 new jobs. Currie says the federation has started working on this. It’s going to “require a lot of planning on our part and coordinated efforts to work with government in order to put a strategy together.”
The federation board is starting next week to put the strategy together. Wales says the industry can grow both GDP and jobs by having more Ontario-based processing.
Farmers can get more yields per acre and “those sorts of things” but those initiatives don’t necessarily create more jobs. “If you get 200 bushels per acre of corn this year and you get 250 (bushels per acre) next year, you haven’t created any more jobs at the farm level,” he says. “It will help your bottom line if you’re able to take some of that corn and do something value-added with it. That’s where you get the real improvements to income, jobs and therefore GDP.”
Joining Wales on the executive this year are newly elected vice-president Keith Currie of Collingwood and re-elected vice president Don McCabe of Inwood. Debra Pretty-Straathof of Arnprior was elected to the board as the fourth executive committee member.
Wales says among the federation’s priorities this year are: ongoing regulatory reform and continuing to push for an expansion of natural gas infrastructure for rural Ontario. The federation has talked to all three provincial political parties about gas infrastructure expansion and they all recognize it’s a long-term project that must begin now. “It will take us 20 years to get the full benefits,” he says.
Wales sees the inclusion of natural gas infrastructure expansion in the government’s long-term energy plan, released this week, as a commitment by the government to help move the matter forward. People are so focused on high electricity costs in the long-term energy plan but “they don’t recognize we can save far more money by getting everybody in rural Ontario to have access to natural gas,” he says. “The saving there far out weigh what we spend on electricity.”
Expanding natural gas infrastructure will also attract processing to rural Ontario. Processors will “go where the gas is. They won’t go where the gas is not,” he says. BF
Comments
Studies of this sort are notorious for neglecting key things, and one of them is ignoring the drag effect caused by restrictive legislation. For example, since because of 200% tariff barriers, supply management is net-negative, agriculture's contribution to the Ontario economy isn't accurately, or fairly, represented.
In addition, it's fundamentally-obvious that whatever size our agricultural industry is, it would be a lot bigger if supply management didn't drive consumers into the US to buy their dairy and poultry products, and if high farm-gate pricing didn't restrict consumer demand accordingly.
Equally as important as the $3.9 billion in tax revenue associated with farming activities, is the offsetting extra, and after-tax, expenditures forced on consumers to buy dairy and poultry products, yet that pesky and damning fact, seems to never get mentioned in these sorts of reports.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
So lets take Supply Management out it....talk about net-negative !
Anything, including supply management, which exists because of 200% tariff barriers, is always net-negative for jobs and economic activity - sorry, but that's just the way it is, and it isn't open to debate, or even discussion.
It is, therefore, also not open to debate or discussion, that the elimination of 200% tariff barriers will produce more jobs and economic activity than what is created by the presence of these tariffs.
It's really too-bad farmers can be so-obtuse about basic economic principles.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Arent you a OFA director? Doesnt the Farm Organization Act say the farm orgs must represent all commodities? Bashing supply management is not supporting all commodities.Does all OFA directors bash some commodities like you?How does the OFA get accrediation when the directors don't support all commodities?
You said a mouthful. I certainly would not want an organization where the board of directors always agree, even when they don't, and I definitely would not want any organization to have members that are afraid to be blunt and outspoken. Raube Beuerman
Its not democracy
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If the price is to much wait till its on sale , if not buy something that is. Eat the SM products or whatever they what to charge a big price in moderation. SM products is not the only thing that is ram down every ones throat in high prices. LOOK at the hydro is it controlled by the government and we cannot import it into Ontario because they control the price and the import, which by the way is 0%. Who controls the solar and wind turbines projects the Ontario government and only the chosen few gets to have them. I need your glasses that only look at a single group and not the whole picture.
Only eat staple food products when there on sale ? who says that ? like really ? What should mums do give their kids cola unless there is a sale on milk ? your comments are absurd and i can almost guarantee that your not the person doing the shopping and preparing the food in your house hold, with the ridicules comments you make.
Sean McGivern
I love how people with no or very little knowledge about any form of agriculture bash supply management. A simple truth is that a two dollar glass of milk puts 8 cents on a farmers milk check. That's not net, that's what they get to make it. Multinational foods companies, unionized workers in the plants and everyone else involved makes way more of a margin than the farmer. It sickens me to hear that everyone else deserves to get paid twice as much as the farmer for less than half the working hours and nothing invested. its more important to have two cell phones, a tablet,lap top and a home computer than staple food. I say grow your own and find out a few truths with all your new extra income!
Dale
What's far worse is farmers who don't understand, and refuse to understand, that any system, which, like supply management, is dependent on 200% tariff barriers, is always, and will always be, net-negative when it comes to jobs and economic activity.
Therefore, it simply doesn't matter how many jobs, and how much economic activity, is supposedly generated by supply management, there will always be more jobs, and more economic activity, as well as economic benefit to the consumer, without supply management.
Therefore, without mincing words, if somebody doesn't know anything about economics, especially the economics of protectionism, they don't know anything about agriculture, and they especially don't know anything about supply management - too bad for them, too bad for us all.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
I love how farmers attempt to obscure or obfuscate the truth in a never ending attempt to prove how victimized they are by an ignorant Canadian, non-farmer populace. Some farmers have been known to actually lie.
Dale, for your post to have any semblance of truth and honesty , people would have to squeeze 9 or 10 glasses of milk of of 1 liter . It is not exactly a state secret that farmers currently receive between 75 and 82 cents per liter. I don't drink my milk out of a shot glass---that is for good whiskey.
Dale, I pay somewhere between $1 and $1.25 / liter at the local grocery store. This tells me that the local hard done by farmer is receiving over 50% of the retail price for his wholesale milk. This means that the multinational food processors, truckers,unionized workers and the actual retailers must somehow squeeze out a profit from the less than 50% that they have left after the farmer has taken his share. Do you even know what a "loss leader" is Dale? It means selling at a loss. Something you as a dairy farmer don't have to worry about, so your ignorance of the term is forgiven.
I say retail your own product and find out a few Truths with all your new extra income.
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