L4-How do we ensure we will always have a domestic food supply?

proposed by Barry Gordon

Cattle farmer got out a few years ago.  This question should be on every commiittee room wall in parliament.  

What if Canada - with all our land and resources - becomes beeholden to other countries for our food supply?

Most people don't know that apple juice sold here comes from apples grown in China.

People don't back up what they say with what they do. 

Most people don't know what domestic food supply is. They don't think about it until there's a food scare.

We can't compete with the US farm bill, but our government needs to make a long term sustainable investment in agriculture if farmers are to stay in business. It's not because they're poor business people, but because they have to manage risk completely. 

Why would we buy agricultural products from other countries with higher subsidies than our farmers have?

Politicians need to be prepared to say "I want my food more expensive." More of that money has to go back to the farm.  

Nutrient management, clean water act, etc costs money. How do you flow more back to the farm?

Supply management - producers are guaranteed an income.  supply mgmt hasn't inhibited efficiencies in milk production - they still have to be good at what they do. 

We need infrastructure here.  Why grow peaches for the fresh market that lasts a few weeks. We have no facilities to process them.  If we want farmers to keep growing peaches in Ontario, then we need to give them the infrastructure. Or accept that we get all fresh peaches from the US from now on and accept an end of an era.

Ensuring sustainable growth - we have a growing urban population and a growing middle class. We need to maintain growth to feed increasing populations.

We don't have a productivity problem or an efficiency problem. 

political leadership and education. 

supply mgmt was legislative in the ONtario community. 

Maybe we should have one farmer organization - Quebec has lots of power because they have  one organization that speaks on farmers' behalf to government. 

We need a strong single voice for agriculture.

primary producers needs to start seeing some rewards. 

Agriculture's spinoff jobs (such as food processing) are living off the low income of farmers.

we need to start with politicians who get it and care. They need to recognize what's at stake. 

with the growing population is it possible that commodities will triple in price in the next few years?  Yes, but farmers won't profit from that because input costs are going up too - fertilizer and fuel.

Potash was recently identified for its huge climb. last week 1,000 workers were laid off in Sask because nobody is buying fertilizer at such high prices.

There is a place now for government intervention.  We need to see a long-term strategic economic interest. 

We need to stop one-time cash injections and allow flexibility so that farmers who need the money most will get it each year.

We need AgriFlex!  Lobby MPs for a meaningful investment that can be used flexibly by provinces.