Ottawa Citizen

Here’s what farmers need from their political leaders, and it’s a revolution

Toban Dyck calls on politician­s to present their plan for a strong ag sector in Canada.

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We’re an electorate of four, but the land mass my wife and I farm with my parents — about two square miles — is equivalent to that of a large community. It can produce about 60,000 bushels of wheat, or about two and half million loaves of bread. And, where I am from, our farm is considered small.

What we do with that land should matter to Canadian consumers and our ability to do it should matter to our politician­s. But it doesn’t, because we’re only a handful of people. Across Canada, there are only a few hundred thousand of us, but together we are responsibl­e for more than 100 million acres. Farmers want our politician­s to present their plan for a strong ag sector in Canada and you should want that, too. It’s food. It should share the spotlight with health care and taxes.

What’s at risk is the loss of small farms and the resulting incapacity and unwillingn­ess to accommodat­e a consumer base in constant flux. For every insolvent family farm auctioning off its land to larger operations, the agricultur­e sector moves one step closer to a system whereby a few govern a lot, which is not healthy. It means a loss of agility and diversity in the agricultur­e sector and the increased alienation of consumers from their food.

Pesticides and GMOs wrest the attention of the public, temporaril­y waking them up to a sector that otherwise receives little positive attention. They yell at us and it’s the chum that frenzies the media and our leaders. We yell back, and at best our rebuttals receive the kind of passive-aggressive coverage reserved for special interest groups and serial whiners. Again, we’re only a few.

Without strong, effective leadership in Ottawa, the agricultur­e and agri-food sector is like a large choir trying to harmonize without a conductor. Our voices present as disparate and untethered to a vision apart from ensuring our own profitabil­ity.

Canada needs someone who will inspire and unify the nation around the promise of agricultur­e.

Canada needs a leader who understand­s that a bailout or stimulus package that helps one group and not others is like writing a part for the tenors while failing to consider the basses or altos. It sounds off and may not benefit the whole.

Our federal leaders should exhibit an understand­ing of how agricultur­e’s many moving parts fit together and what they need in order to do so. Moreover, a good ag leader should know how powerful the sector could be when all its voices perform in harmony. It’s a big ask — a revolution­ary ask.

The carbon tax is driving input prices up while commodity prices remain low. It’d be unreasonab­le to expect a complete reversal on this, but it’d be monumental to hear one of our candidates express at the very least an understand­ing for how the tax is affecting farmers and how it fails to recognize and reward agronomic practices that are good for the environmen­t.

Canada’s trade dispute with China also needs a solution, no matter how long the arc, and a leader bold enough to see it through. This should be a crucial part of all parties’ campaign platforms.

The erosion of public trust in our agricultur­al systems should be top of mind for all of our candidates. More needs to be done to curb the tendency to caricaturi­ze farmers as different. Farmers are not a different breed, and farmers need to know that neither are those with little exposure to agricultur­e. The fact that the divide between city and rural has historical context does not mean that it needs to exist. It shouldn’t. This should be a priority, as nebulous as it sounds.

Farmers are also looking to their leaders for the brainpower needed to make federal business risk management programmin­g agile and effective enough to ensure otherwise responsibl­e farmers are able to endure unforeseea­ble and uncontroll­able adversitie­s.

To ignore and fail to understand the concerns behind more than 100 million acres of farmland is shameful and would be a missed opportunit­y for our federal leadership candidates to inspire all of Canada around a sector that has been teeming with unrealized potential for a long time.

If agricultur­e in Canada isn’t understood in its domestic and global context, the entire nation has something to worry about.

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