AGRICULTURE minister Lyle Vanclief opens up what might be considered a second front this week and next in his public relations campaign to sell the government’s agricultural policy framework.
On March 4, he went before a Toronto business crowd to tell them, and through the urban media tell the millions of consumers in the Toronto area, that the APF is about a lot more than farmers.
It’s about clean environment, safe food, investment and innovation.
Why, it’s about “the priorities and values of Canadians,” as the meeting notice from the Toronto Board of Trade so poetically put it.
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Later in the week, he takes the same message to urban audiences and movers and shakers in Montreal and Halifax. Next week, it is Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Vancouver.
The tour is the brainchild of senior Agriculture Canada officials frustrated that all the attention has been focused on business risk management and farmer complaints about it.
The broader message of the APF – environmental sustainability, food safety, research and ‘renewal’, whatever that means – is being drowned out by the traditional fights and complaints over farm supports.
In the early going, the question on the ninth floor offices of the agriculture department headquarters was whether briefings should be set up with reporters (and not just those damn agriculture reporters with their ear to farmer positions) to see if a broader, more benign message could take hold in the public mind.
But in the end, wisdom prevailed and using reporters as a conduit was ruled out. Their filter is too negative (“but if it’s so good, why are almost all farmers against early implementation? Eh?”)
Vanclief will go directly to opinion shapers in urban areas to explain that the government’s vision is far greater than helping farmers. It is out to help CANADA AND ALL CANADIANS.
Chances are, his audiences will be receptive. Many of them probably think farmers already get too much taxpayer support. They will know little or nothing about the agricultural battles, about the fact that farmers actually want to support the APF and its five pillars, if only the government would slow down enough to listen to the critics, to quit imagining farmers are obstructive and to try to create safety net systems farmers will buy into so the other parts of the APF can be implemented by willing producers.
Instead, they will hear messages close to their consuming and business ethic hearts: promises of investment in environment, Kyoto compliant, safe food to protect kids, support for science and helping farmers train to better compete.
If there is a single member of the Toronto audience who opposes any of that, they might want to consider turning in their membership in the Toronto board of trade for a spot in the National Farmers Union.
So this national tour to take the focus away from farmers likely will do what the deep thinkers in Agriculture Canada hope. It likely will create an urban and business skepticism about farmer concerns.
It will not help Vanclief’s standing in the farm community, which he says is his first concern.
