Prince Edward Island has a different environment and farming system than what’s found on the Prairies.
But agricultural economics eminence grise Ed Tyrchniewicz told University of Manitoba agriculture students and faculty that farmers in P.E.I. and on the Prairies face the same challenge if they want to survive: how to make it from the second wave to the third wave of agriculture.
“We have to move, very seriously now, towards a science-based, science-driven agriculture,” Tyrchniewicz said May 6.
He said farmers need to evolve so they become producers of specialized agricultural products with enhanced values rather than low-cost commodities, which is the general template now.
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Tyrchniewicz, who chaired P.E.I.’s Commission on the Sustainability of Agriculture and Agri-food in 2008-09, said farmers in that province have felt economically and socially threatened in recent years, with financial losses in five of the last seven years and increasing public criticism of the industry’s environmental costs.
The commission spent months in 2008 meeting with P.E.I. farmers and other citizens and sectors of the economy, and Tyrchniewicz said he noticed telling differences with prairie farmers.
There was much more farmer-to-farmer suspicion between island farmers than there is on the Prairies, he said. Many farmers don’t trust their colleagues, viewing them more as competition than possible partners.
One of his prime messages to P.E.I. farmers was that they need to get along with each other better or they’ll drag each other down.
“We basically told them unless you can start getting along … your future doesn’t look very good.”
He said island farmers are also more closely married to their government program payments than prairie farmers, who tend to look for government support in terms of insurance rather than a more constant flow.
As well, hostility toward farmers seems much higher in P.E.I. than on the Prairies, Tyrchniewicz said, with urban residents, tourism industry operators and small landholders viewing big farmers as a threat to their businesses and lives.
Tyrchniewicz said tourism is a giant industry in P.E.I. that employs a large part of the population, which means industrial farming that pollutes waterways and causes red dust to blow is viewed harshly.
The provincial government is mulling whether to regulate farmers’ crop rotations to minimize environmental effects.
However, Tyrchniewicz said farmers on the Island face the same critical economic challenge that prairie farmers face: leaping off the crest of the industrial, commodity farming wave and getting onto a rising third wave of farming.
Big farms have been growing in P.E.I., but this trend will eventually leave few farms or a lot of farmers clinging to survival.
Farmers in P.E.I. and the Prairies need to develop farm production systems and markets for specialized, high value products that don’t require farmers to constantly expand their land bases and equipment sizes.
Tyrchniewicz said the first wave of agriculture in Canada developed small mixed farms. The second wave saw expansion, bulk commodity specialization and industrial practices.
He thinks the next wave will be a return to smaller operations that produce refined products with specific, difficult-to-produce characteristics that can demand a better price.
For instance, Tyrchniewicz said southern Manitoba farmers have a big advantage over other farmers because of their proximity to university, government and private research facilities in Winnipeg.
These centres are researching the health effects of food consumption, such as examining the impact of special crops on people’s health.
He said that type of research could give Manitoba farmers a marketing edge, especially the development of specialized crop varieties or specialized production methods. It could also allow farmers to expand in intensity rather than in size.
Tyrchniewicz said the types of research facilities found in Winnipeg aren’t common in many other parts of the country.
“In P.E.I., I don’t think they have that option to link agriculture with health research,” he said.
