The makers of farm chemicals and plant biotech products are ready to embrace a new form of agriculture, which they say will move producers beyond subsistence farming.
An emerging sector dubbed the bioeconomy, where crops are used to produce goods such as medicines, fuels and plastics, will be the salvation of farming, said Lorne Hepworth, president of CropLife Canada.
“This is about a transformation of agriculture. That’s what we’re talking here,” Hepworth told participants attending a food safety and science conference organized by the Saskatchewan chapter of CropLife Canada.
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He said the evolving bioeconomy provides hope for producers mired in a period of record low incomes and for the plant science companies that service those farmers.
The global sale of plant genetics and chemicals is worth an estimated $55 billion Cdn. By 2015 the same firms could be generating revenues of $700 billion based on developing products suited to the bioeconomy.
“Our member companies are looking at this big-time,” said Hepworth, who speaks on behalf of Canada’s pesticide manufacturers and plant biotech firms.
Beset with depressed commodity prices, record low incomes and a “tsunami wave” of competition from Brazil and Eastern Europe, Canadian farmers are searching for a solution to the farm crisis.
“Given these challenges, more of the same probably isn’t the answer,” said Hepworth in an interview after his presentation.
The industry has to move beyond its centuries-old mindset of producing food and feed. But that requires a new vision from the highest levels of government, which isn’t there right now, he said.
Hepworth said Ottawa’s agricultural policy framework doesn’t cut it. While the right components are in place there is no over-riding vision for agriculture coming out of the nation’s capital, leaving farmers “flapping in the breeze.”
“In fact there’s almost a disconnect between where the officials of the (agriculture) department are at and where the politicians are at,” he said.
There is a tremendous opportunity to position Canada to attract investment into the emerging bioeconomy but there has to be leadership from the grassroots all the way to the highest offices in Ottawa, said Hepworth.
He said the new direction requires immediate buy-in from farmers, which he doesn’t believe will pose a problem: “Canadian farmers are early-adopters.”
