LUMSDEN, Sask. – Saskatchewan farmers want Ottawa to take a different approach to agricultural policy.
Representatives from more than a dozen commodity and lobby organizations met here with agriculture minister Andy Mitchell, finance minister Ralph Goodale and other federal Liberals during national caucus meetings last week.
Terry Hildebrandt, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, said while each group focused on its own commodity during a roundtable discussion, there was a common theme that existing policy isn’t working.
“An overall tone is ‘yeah, we’re in APF, we got a couple years of that, but these reactive type things, let’s get a little more strategic. Let’s get a little more courageous,’ ” he said in an interview after the Aug. 25 meeting.
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“There’s even some talk about maybe there has to be some regulations put in that we use Canadian grains in Canadian biodiesel,” he said, citing an example of what could be done to boost and stabilize Canadian farm incomes.
The president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities agreed.
“A lot of us are on the same wavelength,” said Neal Hardy. “We want to make a better profit out there. We want to keep the industry going and we want to build.”
Mitchell said he got the message.
“I think there was a theme that came out that we need to make investments that will result in producers being able to get from the marketplace the money,” he told reporters.
“There always will be in the agricultural industry, in my view, the need for business risk management programming … but that’s not the primary focus.”
National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells said farmers have consistently said they want to earn their money from the marketplace.
“The Easter report offers an excellent starting point for launching a new direction in federal agricultural policy,” Wells said in a News release
news, referring to a report by Liberal MP Wayne Easter, Mitchell’s parliamentary secretary and a former NFU president. “By following up with solid policy and legislation, we can move Canadian farmers away from this chronic state of negative net income.”
Goodale said a theme he identified during the meeting was that future farm income programs must be user-friendly.
He did not offer relief to farmers from high fuel costs, saying the government’s excise tax on fuel is a fixed number of cents per litre. While the government’s GST income from fuel varies on the amount sold, he said over the last couple of months it earned perhaps a penny more per litre.
He and the other caucus members also heard that until incomes improve, farmers might need assistance beyond what is available through existing programs.
“There was a lot of overtone of we may need some support until we get WTO fixed,” Hildebrandt said. “We may need some support till we get a new ag policy.”
He said he believes Mitchell understands the situation but he doesn’t know if that will translate into some type of transitional money.
“(Mitchell) talks the good talk,” said Hildebrandt. “We do need some video backing up the audio pretty quick.”
