A Policy Concepts Paper released today by Agri-Food Economic Systems makes the case that renewed vision and objectives are required for supply management. This will entail risk, but failing to do so entails greater risks.
The paper explores key factors pressuring supply managed systems, and finds downstream market development increasingly at odds with the fragmented structure of marketing at the farm level. “The juxtaposition of farm marketing fragmented at provincial scale, national scale consumer marketing, and primary processing driven to become national creates important value chain inefficiencies”, says Al Mussell, Agri-Food Economic Systems Research Lead and author of the paper. “It also creates the prospect of provincialism and political decay that ultimately threatens supply managed systems.”
Within a fragmented system, it will be increasingly difficult to engage the major trade and domestic policy issues in supply management outlined in the paper. “Realignment of existing instruments is unlikely to provide adequate adjustment to deeper and more disruptive changes forthcoming. A renewal of what we aspire to through supply management is required, with policy instruments predicated on that vision”, says Mussell.
The paper concludes that a popularly held, aspirational vision is needed that acknowledges successes through supply management, but also opportunities missed, and changes in stakeholder interests and external constraints. This entails a shift in approach toward identification of renewed objectives for supply management and new policy instruments, and an ongoing search for new ideas in marketing collectively.
The Policy Concepts Paper can be accessed at www.agrifoodecon.ca Agri-Food Economic Systems Inc. is an independent economic research organization dedicated to agriculture and food located in Guelph, Ontario.
Source: Agri-Food