Canada’s Green party, campaigning to establish its first foothold in Parliament, is proposing an agriculture policy that would favour small, organic family farms and discourage corporate concentration and what the party calls environmentally destructive factory farms.
It would stop government support for genetically modified food and require labelling of all food products containing GM material.
It would support supply management and the creation of co-operatives and new marketing boards to strengthen farmer market power as long as small farmers producing for local markets could remain unregulated.
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“To the Green party, agriculture means small-scale farming,” the party said in a detailed agricultural policy statement presented to The Western Producer last week.
“The Green party’s emphasis is on protecting and supporting small scale, local, organic agriculture, as opposed to large-scale corporate agriculture. The focus is most importantly on food production rather than on other agri-industry products.”
It said government should use the tools of public policy to encourage organic production.
“The Green party supports a rapid transition to organic agriculture, which would build and strengthen local food economies and rural communities and provide nutrient-rich food to consumers, and which is also local, small scale, energy efficient, ecologically friendly and socially beneficial agriculture that provides a stable income for small farms,” said the party policy paper.
“Government research dollars should also be redirected to organic agriculture projects and initiatives, rather than biotech and energy-intensive farming. The Green party would assist the transition to organic farming methods through aid, loans, research and education.”
The Green party, better financed than ever before under Canadian political funding rules that recognize the hundreds of thousands of votes it attracted in the 2004 election, is running its most ambitious national campaign ever with 308 candidates and extensive policy positions.
An Ipsos-Reid survey of farmer voting intentions published last week indicated that while Green support among most western farmers was at the three percent level, six percent of Manitoba farmers surveyed said they intended to vote Green.
The party also is promising that if it has any parliamentary clout after the Jan. 23 election, it will work to “reform the regulatory environment of agriculture to challenge corporate concentration, eliminate international dumping and subsidies, and continue to allow seed saving by farmers.”
It also vowed policies to “phase out factory farming” in the interests of less environmental degradation and animal welfare.
The Greens say they would work with provincial governments to ensure all animal waste is recycled.
And they would encourage creation of GM-free zones in Canada.
