On the eve of a five-year federal-provincial deal to redesign farm support programs, the National Farmers Union has weighed in with a denunciation of existing programs as too big oriented.
The new Growing Forward farm program framework to take effect April 1 is expected to reduce farm income supports and shift the focus to supporting farmers intent on making a living from market and export revenues.
In a brief published last week, the NFU argued that existing farm programs are wrong-headed.
They favour the large over the small and support an export-oriented agriculture policy that is bad for most Canadian farmers.
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“One of our main points is that a lot of the business risks facing Canadian farmers are the result of federal policy, so there should be a re-orientation of policy away from export and big to make them more farmer friendly,” said NFU research and policy director Cathy Holtslander.
Part of the NFU argument is also that farm support programs should have lower caps on maximum payments to farmers so the largest farms do not reap the majority of benefits.
It calls for a reduction in the cap for AgriStability payments from the current $3 million per operation to $300,000.
“The current cap has created an incentive for highly risky operations to expand extravagantly,” said the NFU policy paper.
“Not only does this result in a transfer of public dollars to imprudent private businesses, but these large entities destabilize the market for other, smaller operators by flooding the market with their subsidized product.”
With federal and provincial agriculture ministers poised to sign a new five-year farm program framework Sept. 14 in Whitehorse, the focus will be on rules that reduce farm support eligibility under AgriStability and shift government attention to supporting investments in innovation, research and trade expansion.
Ministers may agree on program payment caps, but as a way to control pay-outs rather than to tilt the balance toward smaller farmers.
Holtslander said most of the market risks faced by farmers are because of federal policy that exposes them to export market volatility, import competition and market disruptions caused by approval of genetically modified varieties that are controversial in foreign markets.
She said despite high commodity prices, Canadian farmers continue to live through “a prolonged income crisis” that only a shift to more local production and a “food sovereignty” model will end.
“What we are asking for is a better agricultural policy overall and to have more fairness in how programs are delivered,” she said. “There must be more emphasis on the family farm and less on large corporate farms.”
