TWO WEEKS after being sworn in as agriculture minister, Chuck Strahl took a precious hour away from briefings to attend an Ontario grains and oilseeds producer rally outside his Agriculture Canada office tower.
They wanted more money, now!
Strahl, trying to appear open to all sides even as he was being warned internally about the complexities of the problems and the limits to his ability to influence, patiently listened to all the speeches.
Then, as he began to speak about recognizing their distress while hedging his bets, some in the crowd turned their backs on him.
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It was a tough crowd for a rookie minister to face.
Imagine then how tough it has been for veteran farm leaders who often have found themselves under attack from their own grassroots members who think they are in cahoots with these do-nothing politicians because policies have not turned a farm income pig’s ear into a silk purse.
“For the past year, farm leaders were taking it on the chin from their producers for not being aggressive enough,” Ontario Federation of Agriculture vice-president Geri Kemenz said March 3 during a remarkably frank public discussion about the problems of lobbying in hard times. It was held during the annual meeting of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
Kemenz said it has become better this year as individual farmers recognize solutions are not easy, farm leaders cannot dictate farm policy and members have to be part of the process.
But others who spoke during the session were not always as optimistic.
OFA general manager Neil Currie noted that Ontario farmers have been staging rallies against government policy, which lets off steam but does not deal with the political nuances of policy making. He likened it to slapping someone on the side of the head while putting your hand out for help.
“I really think we have to get out of rally mode in a big way,” he said. “We have to get our members beyond militancy and get them engaged in policy making.”
But at the core of the discussion was an understanding that many farmers are hurting, they see their farm leaders jetting off to Ottawa, Geneva or Hong Kong and yet see little benefit for the farm bottom line.
For CFA vice-president Marvin Shauf from Saskatchewan, the key is convincing average farmers that their organization is relevant. He said it involves having a clear focus and communicating it well to all farmer members.
The message was that it is easy for farmers to see their organizations as government collaborators. Shauf said farm leaders often get sidetracked by the “bones of distraction” that governments throw them like debating value chain models when the real issue is farm income.
“We have to be careful we are building solutions for them and not creating optical illusions,” he said.
In other words, farm leaders during tough times have an enormous challenge in convincing their constituency that they are doing what they can, that solutions aren’t simple and that patience is necessary.
Strahl can only embrace these farm leaders as kindred spirits facing the same conflicting pressures and expectations from farmers.
But the embrace should not be too tight – it would raise more suspicions.
