Summit explores beginning farmers' needs

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

© Ag Media Inc

by TREENA HEIN

More help for new farmers is on the way.

A new Ontario Federation of Agriculture task team is holding a beginning farmers summit on Mar. 21 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Delaware Community Centre in Delaware, near London. The cost is $5.

“It’s time that real progress is made on removing obstacles on the road to success for new farmers,” says Joe Dickenson, a federation director and chair of the task team. 

“A lot of times we hear people complaining but we don’t hear their ideas, and it looks really negatively on the entire industry when we do that,” he says. “We have to come up with solutions ourselves, and not expect others to solve our problems.” 

The agenda for the day includes establishing a definition of a beginning farmer, analyzing how existing or possible new government and industry programs can help or hinder beginning farmers, and examining possible programs to help new farmers access start-up funds.

Dickenson says he’s not aware of any provincial programs that help farm start-ups. In October, Leona Dombrowsky, the province’s agriculture minister, noted that a program to help new farmers break into the industry was one of a number of new initiatives indefinitely shelved as provincial Liberals tightened spending in response to the economic downturn. 

The only programs that exist, says Dickenson, are not provincially sanctioned “so they’re not as widespread as they need to be and that certainly poses problems for people outside of specific niche areas and sometimes specific geographical areas.” 

Programs to support new farmers that already exist or are getting underway include FarmStart, http://www.farmstart.ca/ an ‘incubator’ for new organic farmers; FarmLink, which pairs retiring and beginning farmers; and Farmers Growing Farmers, which combines funding, coursework and mentoring. 

Beginning and experienced farmers can attend the summit. “If they have an idea, we want to hear it,” says Dickenson.  

For those unable to attend the summit, a Facebook group is available to take comments, by the name Creating Answers for Beginning Ontario Farmers. Submissions made to this site will be discussed at the Summit. 

Dickenson says the information will be compiled and used to develop a policy about the issue for the federation. Through lobbying federal and provincial governments and “hopefully from there we can start making some changes that will benefit beginning farmers.” BF