The NDP document Everybody Eats accomplishes what you’d expect from a broad-reaching strategic policy document.
It hits all the key talking points and is hugely generous in its promises for how to fix everything that is wrong in Canadian agriculture and how to prop up everything that’s going well.
It offers something for almost everybody: young farmers, old farmers, public research, organics, food inspections, seed registrations, rail transportation, local and export marketers.
If there is a flaw in it, it is perhaps that it tries to be all things to all people.
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But that is what it is supposed to be. Something that sparks discussion and attracts input. A document that puts the issues of agriculture in the public spotlight.
To give the federal Conservative government its due, it has pushed agriculture higher up on the agenda than federal governments of the 1990s and early 2000s, even if international trends have played major roles in prompting those actions.
This particular document, the NDP’s new food strategy, is largely a wish list — one that serves up piping hot fresh, sustaining bread to feed most of the vexing issues existing in agriculture today.
It is a vision document, and as the official opposition the NDP needn’t be held back by the inconvenience of having to pass the proposals into laws, or finding the ways to fund them.
There is much to like here, although details are vague.
The document outlines proposals to review and ramp up business supports, which include investments in rural communities, ensuring farm profitability, and helping young and new farmers.
There are suggested ways of encouraging best management practices and reviews to ensure risks and rewards are shared throughout the supply chain. The NDP suggests renewed support for public seed breeding, and variety registration that ensures farmer needs are at the forefront of the system.
There are promises of money for sustainable farming practices to help cope with weather changes brought about by climate change and promises of research to better understand how agriculture affects waterways and ways to lessen pesticide and fertilizer runoff.
On rail transportation, the document vows to review service level agreements and freight rates. It also calls for a rail infrastructure review.
For markets it wants mandatory price reporting to ensure transparency and fairness.
There are promises of money for research and development and for knowledge networks to ensure the research findings are passed on to the farm level.
The NDP promises to reverse cuts to public research facilities and ensure market development is carried out for exports, as well as encourage local and regional food distribution networks. It calls for an immediate food inspection audit and more inspection staff at key positions.
The document will have its critics. There are controversial points, including one that calls for genetically modified organism approval to consider costs and benefits, rather than just the science around product safety.
As well, points about updating animal welfare legislation could prove contentious, de-pending whether regulations and compliance expenses are piled at farmers’ door.
But as a discussion starter, the document lays down an interesting road map of where agriculture needs to go and the key routes to getting there.
And any document that keeps agriculture in the public eye can only be a good thing.
