CFA Supports Bill C-282

Feb 10, 2023

OTTAWA – The Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) is in support of Bill C-282, An Act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act (supply management).

This Bill, presented by MP Luc Thériault of the Bloc Québécois, would legislate the protection of supply managed sectors in Canada by ensuring the government does not make market access concessions in future trade deals for supply managed products.

A resilient domestic agricultural sector is vital to national food security. Canada’s supply management system promotes stability in the domestic food chain by matching production with demand along with the support of import controls. Supply management also cuts down on overproduction and waste within the food supply chain.

CFA has long advocated that no additional access to supply-managed sectors should be given in future trade agreements, and all political parties sitting in the House of Commons have committed to no additional access and no reductions in over-quota tariffs.

However, despite these commitments, significant concessions have been made in recent trade agreements including CETA, CPTPP and CUSMA, which threatens to undermine the resilience and stable food supply that this system affords.

Bill C-282 would strengthen those commitments into legislation, protecting supply-managed farmers for the foreseeable future and providing them with confidence and stability in the face of any future trade negotiations.

“It can be frustrating to watch promises fizzle when push comes to shove, and supply-managed farmers have seen successive governments renege on their promise to not allow further market access for supply-managed products. By voting for this Bill, politicians will be able to show their true support for supply-managed farmers and allow those farmers to rely on the law rather than rhetoric.” said Mary Robinson, President of CFA.

The CFA appreciates efforts by all political parties to support our farmers and Canada’s domestic agricultural sector, including the Bloc Québécois who are sponsoring this Bill.

Source : CFA-FCA

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators