Ontario farm groups outline provincial election priorities

Monday, June 9, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

For several Ontario commodity groups, the main focus of the provincial election campaign is to convince all political parties the cap on the business risk management program must be raised to $175 million annually.

Currently, government funding for the program is capped at $100 million a year. But farm groups representing non-supply managed commodities came together as part of the Ontario Agriculture Sustainability Coalition (OASC) and are requesting the cap the raised by $25 million a year over three years until the $175 million is reached.

The original program was implemented in 2011 for beef, grains and oilseeds, pork, sheep, veal and edible horticulture to help farmers manage risks beyond their control, such as fluctuating costs and market prices. The cap was put in place by the government about a year later.

Bob Gordanier, president of Beef Farmers of Ontario, says “our number one ask with the Ontario Agriculture Sustainability Coalition” is to raise the cap to $175 million. “We’re saying we’re one voice with one message and OASC speaks for 50,000 Ontario farmers.”

Gordanier says the Premier and Agriculture Minister Kathleen Wynne has said agriculture is such a huge economic driver in the province “and there’s no doubt it is.”

Farmers “put down deep roots and our jobs don’t go off shore,” he notes, adding this is the first time this many commodities have actually pulled together in one direction.

Henry Van Ankum, chair of Grain Farmers of Ontario, agrees with Gordanier. “We continue to feel increased funding for the risk management program is our number one priority.”

Grain Farmers outlined its priorities in its Smart Growth plan released May 14 at the start of the election campaign. The second biggest priority for Grain Farmers is “investment in a specialty soybean crush plant for Ontario as a vehicle to develop new uses and new markets.”

Van Ankum says they’re “encouraging the government to invest some seed money to get that off the ground” and it would be a public/private partnership.

Dennis Fischer, chair of the Ontario Sheep Marketing Agency’s board, says they’re also in agreement that raising the business risk management program cap to $175 million annually is the most important issue in this election. Raising the cap “will allow the confidence in our producers to expand and grow their flocks and that in turn will create jobs for the province.”

Another big concern for sheep producers to “find a way to keep electricity costs in line,” he notes. “They keep soaring and that’s also a concern as well.”

Oliver Haan, vice chair of Ontario Pork, says “the top issue for agriculture in this election” is to raise the cap for the risk management program. That’s the pork industry’s number one request.

“When they (the government) capped the risk management program at $100 million it limited the benefit to producers and it took away the predictability and the bankability that a good risk management program will provide our pork producers,” he notes. “Based on calculations, the $175 million would make that program a very beneficial program.”

Erin MacDuff, policy manager for Ontario Veal, says “our number one ask, along with our Ontario Agriculture Sustainability Coalition partners, is to raise the risk management program cap. Together we are speaking with one voice and have one message.”

An increase in the cap will “allow farmers to make investments in their businesses and rural communities,” she notes. “A commitment by the government to Ontario farmers will allow investments on their farms, which will create long term sustainable jobs.”

MacDuff is also the policy manager for Ontario Goat. That group’s priority in this election campaign is for funding for food safety and traceability programs. “The industry has grown at a fast pace so the services and programs that other sectors are accustomed to haven’t kept up in the goat sector so any assistance the government can give in the areas of food safety and traceability is important to Ontario Goat,” she says.

For horticulture farmers, extending natural gas infrastructure to rural Ontario and maintaining rural infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, are among their main priorities in the election. “We can lower our costs if growers have natural gas throughout the rural areas,” says Ray Duc, chair of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association.

Another big concern for horticultural farmers is continually increasing costs, such as the minimum wage increase just put in place June 1 where the wage increased to $11 per hour from $10.25 per hour. “Wages keep going up,” he notes, adding farmers are “expected to pay for these social programs. It just eats away at our margins.”

Water taking and how to treat wastewater are also big concerns for farmers and “common sense solutions” are needed to deal with those, he says.

For the general farm organizations, the priorities ranged from protecting prime farmland to a focus on more long-term matters, such as the future significance of agriculture.

Mark Wales, Ontario Federation of Agriculture president, says their main priorities are:

• Getting a commitment from government to extend natural gas infrastructure to rural Ontario.
• Ensuring rural municipalities are properly funded so they can meet their infrastructure needs. “If they’re not it means our members are going to have to pay a lot more property taxes for the things they need, such as roads, bridges, culverts and so on.”
• As part of promoting local food, kids need to learn how to cook and food literacy must be part of the schools’ curriculum.
• Resolving several property assessment matters, such as the new government should implement an assessment working group’s recommendation that the assessment for commercial grain elevators be commercial and not industrial as it is now. There would be a 30 per cent reduction in taxes for grain elevators if that change is implemented, he says.

Lorne Small, Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario president, says his organization is “talking a lot about what we see coming in the future.”

Small says agriculture is largely being ignored in the election campaign. “Agriculture is a very small part of the electorate these days” and from a policy stand point the industry must make a lot smarter requests to government.

“We’re going to have to spend a fair bit of time focusing on getting buy-in from the non-farm sector as well,” he notes.

One of the major game changers in agriculture today is governments are increasingly less able and willing to “provide the kind of support they had for agriculture in the past,” Small says, adding there is a shift away from governments providing direct payments to farmers to putting more emphasis on building infrastructure. “From our organization’s standpoint, that makes sense.”

Karen Eatwell, president and Region 3 coordinator of National Farmers Union-Ontario, says “the number one issue we feel is important is the protection of prime farmland (Class 1 land and source water areas) in Ontario; saving it from further development.”

Eatwell says NFU-O wants better land planning policies than the current ones in place to protect Class 1 farmland and source water areas. “They (land use policies now in place) are not doing enough currently to protect” these areas.

Another area of concern for NFU-O members is increasing hydro rates. Farmers aren’t always able to take advantage of the cheapest times of day to use hydro and can’t tap into saving money that way, she says.

Spokesmen for Dairy Farmers of Ontario, Chicken Farmers of Ontario and Egg Farmers of Ontario couldn’t be reached for comment. BF