A GOOD idea that has been percolating through the Agriculture Canada bureaucracy for months is expected to see the light of day in the spring.
It has the potential to fill a void that has long existed in agricultural policy making in Canada – the lack of critical long-term thinking and analysis about what the sector needs, how to build on its strengths and address its weaknesses.
Sometime in early 2004, the Agricultural Policy Institute will be launched as a centre where public and private economic research on agriculture is analyzed, gaps identified, studies commissioned, results distributed and discussions organized.
Read Also
Growth plates are instrumental in shaping a horse’s life
Young horse training plans and workloads must match their skeletal development. Failing to plan around growth plates can create lifelong physical problems.
The centre will be more than a clearinghouse. It also will organize conferences and encourage debate by academics, policy makers and industry players.
“It is a long time since we have had a forum for that kind of long-term analysis and thinking,” says Jan Dyer, executive director of research and analysis in Agriculture Canada’s strategic policy branch. “The idea is to have policy debates on things that affect the sector and the centre will provide the information and analysis that can stimulate such debates.”
While Agriculture Canada will provide the office space in Ottawa, Dyer said the centre will be “arm’s length” from government, supported with public and private resources and run by a board of directors.
OK, creation of a centre for deep thinking will hardly sound like a lifeline for a farmer struggling to stay above water.
Still, it is a great idea and that farmer may some day reap the benefits. Despite agriculture’s importance in the Canadian economy and the amount of time and resources spent trying to deal with sector problems, there are precious few places where industry trends are analyzed, needs and solutions are studied and considered outside partisan atmosphere of political debate.
There has been no shortage of farm policy in the recent past. What has been lacking is smart policy, policy that uses limited resources wisely, policy that actually fixes what is broken and doesn’t break what is fixed, policy that has industry support.
During the past 15 years, there has been a steady stream of programs with an alphabet soup of acronyms and one thing in common – they usually seemed to miss the mark.
Along the way, traditional policies have been shaken up or destroyed with little understanding of the long-term implications. Remember how ending the Crow Benefit was going to make the prairie agricultural economy stronger?
But where could the analysis be found?
Governments have herds of policy thinkers but they serve an agenda. It can hardly be viewed as neutral or non-partisan.
Universities offer precious little critical analysis of the industry beyond comment on the policies of the day.
Farm groups rarely have the resources or energy to look beyond current issues. The National Farmers Union is a notable exception but fairly or not, its critics say ideology determines the analysis.
There are few privately funded “think tanks” specializing in agricultural issues.
It means there’s a critical thinking void that has left farm policy generals designing policies to fight the last war instead of the next one.
If the API fills even part of that void, it will be a welcome addition to the political landscape.
