When federal junior agriculture minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn held consultations with young farmers or want-to-be farmers last November, two things troubled him – their negative attitudes and ignorance about federal farm programs.
Within weeks, the veterans affairs minister and minister of state for agriculture will unveil a young farmer plan that he hopes will help remedy those problems.
“There is a lot of work to do because these young people are the future of farming,” Blackburn said Feb. 22. “I don’t think it is a question of money. I think it is a question of attitude, mentality and information.”
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He began to roll out government plans for young farmers Feb. 21 in Niagara Falls, Ont., when he announced $1.2 million over four years for the Canadian Young Farmers’ Forum.
The money will be used to fund workshops on farm business management practices, increase information flow, support provincial young farmer organizations and allow the CYFF to organize meetings across the country to let young farmers exchange ideas.
“This will allow young farmers to stay on the leading edge of change,” said the minister.
Blackburn said the challenge is to change the “mentality” of young people considering agriculture as a career.
“What I noticed is that if they come from a farm, they remember the bad moments their parents had in the past and not the good times,” he said. “It was negative. I think that is the mentality we have to change.”
He said he also discovered that many young people were unaware of help that is available.
Some who wanted to get into farming said they were struggling to pay off $40,000 student loans.
“With that burden, how can we afford to buy a farm that could be worth $1.5 million?” Blackburn said. “They had no idea that we have federal programs that can help.”
The minister specifically mentioned that the Canadian Agricultural Loans Act has been changed to allow young and beginning farmers to borrow up to $500,000, double the previous limit.
“They didn’t know that,” he said. “This is information we need to get out there. I saw in their eyes that they wanted to farm but they mainly saw obstacles and didn’t know that help is available.”
Blackburn said he thought many negative opinions that he heard from young farmers he met really came from their parents who often told them that farming is too unstable and they should find something more stable.
“I think we have to work on changing that mentality, to have young people remember the good moments on the farm and not concentrate on the bad,” he said.
Blackburn’s plan to announce a government strategy for young farmers in the early weeks of the new parliamentary session beginning March 3 could affect a decision by the House of Commons agriculture committee last autumn to hold hearings this winter on beginning farmer issues.
Some opposition MPs have argued that if the government acts before hearing advice from the committee, the study may be irrelevant.
They are smarting after the government moved last summer to announce Product of Canada-labelling content requirements before the committee had reported from exhaustive hearings on the issue.
