The Hill: Cuts in agricultural research funding are hurting our competitiveness

Thursday, December 3, 2009

So say farm groups, who are lobbying hard in Ottawa to repair the damage done by Liberal deficit-cutting in the 1990s. But so far the Tory government doesn't seem to be listening

by BARRY WILSON

Fourteen years after the Liberals took an axe to agricultural research funding in the name of deficit reduction, the chickens are coming home to roost.

From all sides of the farmer political spectrum, a theme has developed in recent months as farm leaders troop to Parliament Hill with their wish lists. More research is needed. Did I mention research? Ottawa has to spend more money on research.

In 1995, then-finance minister Paul Martin cut close to a billion dollars out of agriculture-related spending. Prairie grain transportation subsides were abolished. The Agriculture Canada research budget was decimated, departmental staff deeply cut.

On the research file, then-minister Ralph Goodale offered calm explanations about how it was an increase, not a decrease, in research funding. It was his job to sell a highly destructive budget and he did a great job.

Farmers more or less let the Liberals get away with agricultural cuts, even if they never forgave them for the long gun registry. Near-record grain prices helped absorb the sting.  

A matching funds program meant that fewer government dollars would attract more private sector investment, Goodale argued, but he was wrong. In the past 14 years, private investment has been limited and investment in fundamental long-term research has been sharply restricted.

The result, farm groups argue, is that Canada is falling behind on key files because of a lack of research. The spread of fusarium can only be fought by increased public research, farm witnesses told MPs this autumn. Disease-resistant, drought-tolerant or other beneficial crop varieties are being developed elsewhere at Canada's expense because the Canadian research model is broken, farm witnesses said.

One of the strongest pleas has come from Grain Growers of Canada (GGC), a national commodity coalition that supports the Conservative government on many of its projects from Canadian Grain Commission reform to the end of the Canadian Wheat Board export monopoly for Prairie wheat and barley.

But on research, despite its origins in Liberal cuts, GGC takes aim at the lack of Conservative action. In an autumn presentation to the House of Commons finance committee, which is preparing a report on what should be in the next budget, GGC executive director Richard Phillips said that, since 1994, Agriculture Canada research branch spending has been stagnant with no increase for inflation.

"In 2009 dollars, this means that funding has dropped from $458 million to $280 million today, nearly a 50 per cent cut," he told MPs. "The number of front-line scientists has dropped by more than 10 per cent in just the last couple of years."

He said Ottawa should add $28 million per year to the Agriculture Canada A-base research budget over the next 10 years to restore research spending levels for basic research that existed in the mid-1990s, when the Liberals gutted research funding.

In four years, despite a new science policy announcement a few years ago that sank like a stone from view, the Conservative government has not really focused on repairing the damage.

To Conservative credit, tens of millions of dollars are currently being invested to upgrade labs allowed to fall into disrepair over the years. But farm groups across the spectrum insist that this barely touches the surface of the investment needed in research if Canada is to remain competitive. BF

Barry Wilson is a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery specializing in agriculture.