Canada Needs a New Agri-food Policy

Guelph, ON – Canada needs a new agri-food policy- both international and domestic factors demand it   

 

Volatility in Canadian agricultural prices and trade flows have dramatically increased in both domestic and international markets. Markets are not only responding to instability in frictional global supply and demand pressures, but also to the increasingly political and unpredictable nature of trade and foreign affairs actions.  The experience of the post-World War II period and the evolved federal-provincial-territorial agricultural policy arrangements in Canada do not provide the playbook for a path forward. 

 

This calls on us to ask some fundamental questions regarding Canadian agri-food.  “Do we really understand our true strengths and weaknesses in the world that is emerging” asks Ted Bilyea, Agri-Food Economic Systems Associate, Interim President and CEO of the Canadian Agri-food Policy Institute, and co-author of the policy note. “Can we collectively advance our strategic thinking by order of magnitude to mitigate the heightened risks, protect those most vulnerable and seize on myriad emerging opportunities”?  

 

The policy note traces the past evolution toward more rules-based international trade in agri-food into improvements in agricultural policy development in Canada, making possible the watershed 5-6 year agri-food policy agreements among governments- most recently the Canadian Agri-food Program.

 

“As rules-based trade in agri-food retreats- most notably with dramatic increases in US farm support- the solid footing for today’s federal-provincial-territorial agreements in agriculture is weakened”, said Douglas Hedley, Agri-Food Economic Systems Associate and co-author of the policy note. “A descent into provincialism in agri-food policy in Canada would be disastrous, but it cannot be ruled out without awareness and effort”.

 

“Our great difficulty is to fully come to grips with the situation that lies ahead of us”, says report co-author Al Mussell, Agri-Food Economic Systems Research Lead.  “Our challenge has been one of managing the abundance of farm and food products at price levels and volatility that provide farm profitability and an efficient investment climate.  But that was in a more secure trade and geo-political environment.  The challenge of abundance remains, but we must now also consider food security and the risk of sudden collapse of segments in fashioning agri-food policy”.

 

Source: Agri-Food Economic Systems