LAST winter, when Ontario farm leaders met privately with Ontario Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty looking for a more farmer-supportive policy, the Ottawa lawyer had a proposition.
The conversation went something like this, according to Ontario biotechnology promoter Gord Surgeoner. “I have an 800-pound gorilla on my back called the health budget. If you help me with that, I would be better able to help you.”
What did the premier want? Should farmers make donations to the provincial health budget, quit using the health-care system, pay more tax?
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As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
Nope. It is the latest attempt to package farming as something other than, or at least more than, a producer of food.
It is a provider of health.
Farmers and agriculture minister Leona Dombrowsky are happy to climb aboard the latest bandwagon since it promotes the industry and polishes up its image as a partner in the crusade for better health.
McGuinty, meanwhile, is gambling that promotion of healthy eating and nutritious local food products might pay dividends by making Ontarians healthier and less likely to need expensive medical attention. If it gives the farm community an image and marketing boost, so much the better.
“The premier has established a ministry of health promotion,” Dombrowsky noted in an interview. “We think it is going to be very important to link health promotion with eating Ontario food.”
Television advertisements have started to air across the province.
If it catches on in Ontario, expect to hear echoes of it in other provinces. Support a farmer and contribute to your health.
Of course, it is mainly packaging, marketing and positioning.
The health benefits of nutritious food have not exactly been a secret over the ages.
However, in a world where obesity and food are sometimes considered the enemy, where food safety is constantly questioned, where farm produce is devalued in the market and where biotechnology critics raise the spectre of scary-sounding “frankenfood,” associating farming with a motherhood issue like healthiness can’t help but give the industry an image facelift.
And in a nice bit of irony, those creators of the “frankenfoods” may end up being the main beneficiaries of the food-health link.
One of the next biotech waves will be “pharming,” the production of crops that have been genetically modified to contain ingredients used to produce medicines.
Literally, farmers under contract to pharmaceutical companies will be growing the raw ingredients for medicines. A handful already do and thousands more will follow.
Last week, asked if urban Ontarians are showing any resistance to seeing their tax dollars going to an industry that year after year is in trouble, Ontario minister Dombrowsky tried out a line that sounds like a theme.
“It’s the industry that feeds us,” she said. “I believe we produce the best food in the world right here. People in our province benefit from that. Whatever we invest as a government in this industry, we are unable to calculate from a health perspective, from a community perspective, the impact of the agricultural community.”
Then came the clincher.
“When you eat our products, you will be healthier for it because they meet our standards. It is a health issue.”
