Election Issue: Time for a food strategy

This post is an Ontario Federation of Agriculture commentary, which are emailed to me each week. I couldn't have written it better myself, so I'm posting federation president Bette Jean Crews' words in their entirety. 




The federal party agriculture leaders met this week to debate the key farm issues in the upcoming federal election. Among those issues was a strategy for Canada?s food. Each of the leaders ? regardless of party ? acknowledged the need to create a national strategy for Canadian food.

What?s missing is the commitment to fully embrace the National Food Strategy that has been developed in consultation with the entire agri-food industry. Only this Strategy adequately addresses the issues our industry is facing and sets out the strategic vision to secure a sustainable food supply in Canada.

For the past several years, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture has been working diligently with our agri-food industry partners and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture to develop a workable set of objectives to ensure a profitable agri-food sector in Canada. Our collective National Food Strategy provides industry and governments with a shared set of goals to guide better agriculture and food policy.

Canada is an affluent nation with an abundance of food. But our farms have suffered from low or negative returns and are now under staggering debt loads. Our food processing sector is leaving the country to relocate to more favourable locations for doing business. Our children and adults alike are increasingly suffering from food related illnesses, often due to poor diet choices.

Where is the commitment from our federal candidates to address all of these issues? Where is the commitment to our economy, our environment and to addressing one of the real fundamental drivers of our high health costs? We need real commitments during this federal election to support Canadian farmers, families, and the agri-food industry.

The OFA and our partners across the agri-food sector are strongly advocating for sound agricultural policy initiatives to be a big part of each party?s election platform. We need new policy in the short term to ensure our farming businesses remain viable and thrive. But our political leaders of the future ? the next federal government ? also need to work with us to adopt the longer term strategic vision for our food system and food supply. Policy without context, without longer term goals, is just policy. Our food system works for now in spite of some of these policies: most Canadians have access to nutritious food. But it is not working as best it can because there is no context to the myriad of policies that affect our food system, from agriculture through environmental and health regulations.

We need to have a new federal government that works with the food industry and experts from other fields affecting food on the context for our policies ? a strategic vision for food.

The 20 year Strategy provides this long-term vision to government and the private sector. It has been ironed out by leaders in the agri-food sector and from other disciplines who understand the depth and breadth of our food system and how food affects and is affected by almost every part of our lives. It provides the objectives and outcomes to deliver a sustainable food system for Canada and will serve as a means to secure a profitable and sustainable food production sector with sound environmental practices, improved health objectives and a heightened focus on supporting the Canadian food sector. You can learn more about the vision for a National Food Strategy by visiting www.nationalfoodstrategy.ca.

Everyone who eats needs to insist Canada?s National Food Strategy remain a priority issue in this federal election and urge all parties to adopt this strategic approach to securing a profitable and sustainable agri-food sector in Canada. We all deserve a strategy that will secure sustainably-produced food for our future and for future generations. This federal election, vote for the party that will address the agriculture and food issues that matter most to us.