Canadian agriculture needs a wave of entrepreneurial revival, Lyle Vanclief said July 19 following his tour of the prairie drought.
The federal agriculture minister told Western Producer editors in Saskatoon that farmers should switch to another product if they can’t make money growing canola, or if it’s often too dry to get a decent wheat crop.
Vanclief said the government is not prepared to continue ad hoc aid payments or crisis management with agriculture. It wants to see farming run on a business plan.
He predicted that 10 years from now Saskatchewan farming will have “changed immensely,” with more specialty crops, more identity preservation of farm products, and especially more livestock. Grain prices aren’t likely to change much because of foreign subsidies and competition, so it makes more sense to “walk it off rather than truck it off” the farm.
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Farming has become distant to many urban, eastern Canadian consumers. Vanclief said if the farmers in his Ontario riding all quit, most of his constituents would not notice for a while.
While the minister applauded the move by commodity groups to start quality assurance and on-farm food safety programs, he said it is based on the consumer perception that their food might be unhealthy.
To assist producers in “farming the marketplace,” Vanclief said the federal and provincial governments will develop a new safety net by next July, offer to train farmers to develop new skills and ensure agriculture gets its share of the research and innovation budget.
While the safety net should not be regarded as a regular part of farm income, Vanclief said the government can help producers raise the capital to diversify by stimulating investment dollars. He suggested tax credits could be offered to individuals willing to invest in agriculture venture funds.
The federal government is also willing to help agriculture with trade deals, but Vanclief had few concrete details. He said the next World Trade Organization talks will be slow and difficult since the Americans and Europeans won’t stop subsidizing their farmers. But Canada can’t afford to match the subsidies and he rejected the idea of paying farmers for preserving green space.
The answer lies in finding profitable niches like nutraceuticals, ethanol and biofuel, and industrial uses for food crops, he said.
