At last month’s Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan Policy Summit, various industry heads brought forward ideas that they wanted producers to consider for the agriculture sector’s Next Policy Framework.

University of Saskatchewan agricultural economist Richard Gray says now is the time for producers to speak up and have a voice for the NPF.

“Both as an economist and a producer, I think it’s important to think about agricultural research,” he said.

“And my conclusion is that it’s in the producers’ interest and in the national interest to do some reallocation within the agricultural policy framework.”

Gray said there needs to be a rebalancing of business risk management tools such as AgriStability and AgriRecovery because they were set up in a very different economic environment than present day. As a result, BRMs aren’t enhancing productivity in the way governments would like.

It’s not that BRMs need to disappear, he said. They have a purpose, but they need to be reassessed.

“They’re investing their money in BRMs, and I think that’s partly because of the structure of the NPF,” Gray said.

“You get together, what do you discuss? Well, what we funded last time, and you continue to fund what you did last time, rather than really look at rebalancing it seriously.”

He suggests reducing government support in crop insurance and other BRMs and investing the “saved” dollars into crop research. Another option would be to take the money from AgriInvest and match it to producer levies rather than producer savings accounts.

The latter suggestion is based off a model used in Australia, where industry provides a large amount of money that’s then matched by the federal government. It provides an advantage to producers by giving them a larger voice in research.

“And that would attract in producer money, more private money, into research that then they can use to support all sorts of other research activities in a way that benefits producers,” he said.

Gray also encouraged the growth of research and re-establishing breeding programs to their previous size because increased data can increase productivity when the information is put into farmers’ hands.

Trade and food security

Productivity growth is also on the mind of Pierre Petelle, president and chief executive officer at CropLife Canada, who wants to see more focus on agricultural economic influences and food security.

He said Canadian governments need to realize the power that agriculture has and how that could grow with the establishment of a food security strategy.

“We (CropLife) are trying to remind them that food security, whether it’s Canadian food security or global food security, as a major food exporter … has to include fair rules for trade,” Petelle said.

“(It) has to include a regulatory structure that invites innovation here in Canada and investment here.”

He believes that in the NPF, there should be an effort to increase value-add processing and reform of regulatory structures that hamper the development of the processing industry.

“Part of that would be better access, more access to innovations (from) small and large companies, and make sure that our export channels are predictable and fair, and that the Canadian government plays that role,” he added.

Additional considerations have to be made for trade and decisions on crop technology, genetics and agronomic products with potential changes on the international level, such as the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement and the European Union’s mirror clauses.

Transportation industry

Eric Harvey, president and chief executive officer of the Railway Association of Canada, said that when it comes to trade, food security and productivity, a consideration has to be made for transportation.

Harvey, who is in his first year in this role, said he has started the Moving Economies Coalition, which includes the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, which aims to “level the playing field” with the United States.

The goal is to unlock private sector investment with investment tax credits because of the increase in shipping agricultural products by rail. RAC data shows that the agriculture industry’s value as a rail customer has significantly increased.

“Railways have been moving essentially 50 per cent more grain than what the order was in 2014, all of this without any regulatory intervention,” Harvey said.

“And the reason for that is, first, generally speaking, the ag community has been performing better than the Canadian economy.”

He said agriculture has helped the railway sector increase and update its capacities and equipment for better performance and higher grain movement.

Harvey sees the betterment of agriculture as a win for rail, and said the two industries have common interests in regulatory areas such as trade, labour stability, supply chain investment and policy changes.

He urged producers to consider their needs from a supply chain persepctive for the NPF, particularly when it comes to improving efficiency and sovereignty. For example, in order to turn away from U.S. shipping routes, east-bound railway capacity in Canada would need to increase because western Canadian ports are limited.

“On the east side, I’m comfortable saying that you’ve got lots of capacity. (There’s) many ports and the rail networks east of Montreal essentially have available capacity,” he said.

There’s also a need to diversify markets and transportation traffic to enable greater capacity.

Harvey also encouraged producers to ask for an improved relationship with railways and grain contractors, saying there is a lack of connection that results in misunderstandings.

More transparent information is important in order to improve policy and supply chains, such as costs and margins. Railway data is available, including weekly traffic, grain movement and and prices, but with grain contractors, it’s a bit more unclear.

“That’s my view of the matter because for now, what we know is that Canadian railways have complied with the MRE (maximum revenue entitlement) since 2000,” Harvey said.

“And then others that we’re contracting with give whatever offer they give you. And this is not for me to comment on that, but this is the hard reality.”

Research, business, government and transport, alongside producers themselves, spoke during last month’s Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan Policy Summit.

A common theme was a need for modernized policy and a rebalancing of priorities to better meet producer needs.

Govenment has already been engaging with producers, and has been hearing similar concerns.

“Producers want better support for competitiveness and market access and stability and responsive programs that reflect realities and risks that you face, as well as strong support for the next generation farmers,” Steven Jurgutis, Agriculture Canada’s director general of the policy, planning and integration directorate said via Zoom during the meeting.

The current Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (SCAP) runs from 2023-28, and through federal-provincial-territorial agreements has provided $3.5 billion in programs and initiatives to support the five priority areas of the framework:

• Building sector capacity, growth and competitiveness.
• Climate change and environment.
• Science, research and innovation.
• Market development and trade.
• Resiliency and public trust.

These were laid out in the Guelph Statement of 2021.

In July, the country’s agriculture ministers are set to meet in Halifax to create the policy statement for the new framework, which will be in place from 2028-33.

Producer perspective

Chris Procyk, a grain farmer near Filmore, Sask., says the biggest risk to agriculture is the lack of people, noting a shortage of labour and farm support such as on farms and grain elevators, and availability of the next generation.

“Agriculture is still a people business, and we need lots of support and tech and whatnot … and transitioning some of the knowledge from one generation to the next, whether it’s on the farm or whether it’s through all the relationships we have,” he said during the producer panel.

His fellow panellists agreed and shared their own concerns about insufficient livestock knowledge within the labour force, ineffective risk management programs and a lack of support to the livestock sector.

Adrienne Ivey, a grain and commercial beef producer near Ituna, Sask., said her operation is an example of the inadequate livestock support. They’ve always had beef and grain but have significantly downsized their beef herd while increasing the grain side.

“Very unfortunately, I believe that business risk management, and more specifically, the lack of business risk management on the livestock side of things, has been a huge determiner of why we have made that switch,” she said.

The lack of insurance options for livestock producter and income stabilization threaten beef operations in a way grain operations aren’t because of the diversity of support available.

Trevor Green, a cattle producer near Fleming, Sask., echoed the sentiment, saying he sees the lack of a “backstop” within BRM programs, such as production insurance, as one of the biggest risks.

“Some of the changes to AgriStability are definitely going to help,” he added.

“A few more that have been proposed would definitely help a lot more.”

Among the panellists, there was a shared worry about the promise from the various levels of government to continue programs and build off of them when there’s little to support the livestock sector as a whole, especially when compared to crops.

The additional challenge with the programs is their complexity and, oftentimes, inconsistencies.

“Some of these programs are so complex and convoluted that they’re a nightmare to understand,” Procyk said.

“And I think at any given time, many of us, whether you’re grain or livestock, want to understand where you’re sitting on any given day, given the conditions.”

There are aspects that are “counterintuitive”, such as being told to keep cattle seperate from grain within the operation,even though it’s benefical to keep everything together. In the new framework, Procyk wants to see simplifed language, consistent advice and standardized terms.

When it comes to the NPF as a whole, the producers said policy makers need to consider the potential issues that agriculture will face down the line to 2033 and not just to 2028.

While BRM programs dominated the discussion, it was clear that counting on government isn’t the goal. Producers said the ultimate goal of the NPF shouldn’t be more BRM programs, but ways to ensure industry profitability and decrease vulnerability of risk.

Success of business is number one, but farmers don’t want to be left high and dry.

“I think that the best use of government funding … is to make sure that we have a healthy industry … so that the suite of business risk management tools that we have don’t need to be used,” Ivey said.

She said trade uncertainty is a significant weight on farmer’s minds and is why BRMs and other measures are needed.

“We still need backstops,” she added.

“Farming is a very capital heavy business, and we need to be able to invest that money with a little bit of stability behind it.”

Other considerations of the framework should include technology and research investments, farmland ownership and business transitions, such as improved timelines to provide farmers with new technology and research quicker.

However, even bigger is the recognition of agriculture’s economic value.

“We’re not just an industry. We’re an economic driver, provincially and federally,” said Procyk.

“We all know the stats of how many jobs are born out of ag or ag business…. Instead of looking at how much of this piece of the pie are we going to carve up, let’s make the pie bigger.”

He said if money is put into farmers’ hands, they will spend it on new equipment, animals and genetics and new methods that will circulate to agribusiness, research and product development and other industries.

Green said this can extend to Canadian food sovereignty, saying that in Saskatchewan alone, there are many opportunities.

“There are so many things we can expand in this province to add value to our products that we grow, like meat. We don’t have enough kill plants to buy beef locally. We don’t have enough pork plants to buy pork locally,” he said.

“We’re importing lettuce and tomatoes from Arizona when we have one of the largest greenhouses in Saskatchewan growing trees, which blows my mind.”

Panellists also asked government to take more feedback from producers themselves, rather than supplemental industry who may be louder than producers and their organizations.