It has grown into one of the key hot-button issues facing agriculture — the widening gap between how farmers farm and how people want their food produced.
Addressing consumer desires in a social media, instant-information world is routinely a topic of conversation amongst agriculture folks.
Typically, most of the attention is paid to the gulf between the consumer and the farmer —with the hope of reconnecting people to where their food comes from.
Here in Ottawa, however, the conversation around the widening agriculture knowledge gap has shifted to teaching politicians and policy makers about the industry.
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When the Liberals were elected in October 2015, they did so with little backing or support from rural Canada.
There were a few exceptions, most notably in the Maritimes where the Liberals swept all 32 seats. There were also a handful of Liberal wins in rural seats in Ontario and Quebec.
But the conversation shift is noticeable, particularly to agriculture stakeholders in Western Canada, who had become used to dealing with a federal Conservative government that had made agricultural policy a priority.
For the current, more urban government, the learning curve since taking office has been significant — a factor more than a few MPs have acknowledged in conversation over the past eight months.
The Liberals have experienced growing pains on several files, particularly when hit with procedural manoeuvres by the opposition — procedural tricks that at one point almost cost the Liberals a major vote on a government bill (Some 40 MPs were missing at the time the vote was called).
On the agriculture file, Liberals have kept their cards close to their chests, but the knowledge gap has reared its head in various situations.
This includes conversations with stakeholders about specific issues or in watching the House of Commons agriculture committee struggle to set an agenda.
With so few Liberals in caucus possessing an agriculture background, the crash course on issues like diafiltered milk, grain transportation and produce insurance has been apparent.
Then there’s the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and agriculture’s ongoing labour shortage.
For the past few weeks, the House of Commons standing committee on human resources has been reviewing the program.
As of July 1, pending action by the government, the number of temporary foreign workers allowed in a company’s workforce will sit at 10 percent. It is rumoured the federal government is considering keeping the cap at its current level of 20 percent, but no official notice of these intentions has been given at this time.
Canada’s agriculture industry has been arguing for years that one of the biggest challenges facing the industry is labour, with urban Canadians unwilling to move to rural communities.
The shortfall, the Canadian Human Resource Council has noted, is costing the sector $1.5 billion in on-farm losses annually.
That number stunned MPs on the committee.
The committee’s recommendations are expected to be finalized in the next few weeks, with a report then expected to be sent back to the House for consideration.
The government has announced several summer consultations, including a handful of agriculture ones. Those consultations are a chance for stakeholders to talk about their priorities.
They’re also a chance to start exposing politicians to the wonderful world of Canadian agriculture.
