The Ontario Corn Producers’ Association learned very early that consultation and cooperation are the keys to getting things done. Such efforts often mean more work, more compromises, and ‘sharing the glory’ for accomplishments with other partners. But they also result in decisions and actions that are well-considered and broadly supported, thus increasing the likelihood for implementation and success.

That’s why OCPA has been an active member and supporter of coalitions, including AGCare, the Ontario Farm Environmental Coalition, the Ontario Agricultural Commodity Council, the Ontario Field Crop Research Coalition, the Ontario Corn Industry Advisory Committee, the Ontario Agricultural Research Coalition, the Grain Growers of Canada, the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, the Agricultural Commodity Corporation, the Agricultural Adaptation Council, Ontario Agri-Food Technologies, the
National Agriculture Environment Committee and the Farmers of Ontario.

Government officials, both federal and provincial, have been active participants in many of these coalition processes, participating directly and/or assisting in the design and execution of coalition projects. Successes through this approach include the creation of Agricorp, the Agricultural Commodity Corporation (and its successful Commodity Loan Program), the Agricultural Adaptation Council, Ontario’s farm pesticide user certification program and the Environmental Farm Plan program.
NISA and GRIP (from which Ontario’s Market Revenue Insurance was created) were also created as part of an extensive cooperative process involving all Canadian agricultural ministries and major farm organizations.

Cooperation continues to flourish in our relations with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. The ministry’s approach to safety net program design, environmental programs, food safety and research generally involves close consultation with farm and other agri-food groups. This cooperation extends, in many cases, to other Ontario ministries.

It used to be much the same in Ottawa. Safety net programs were considered and designed in meetings involving all affected farm sectors, provinces and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). AAFC personnel were instrumental in the creation of both the National Agriculture Environment Committee and the CanAdapt program of Ontario’s Agricultural Adaptation Council, a new cooperative approach to management of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada programs.

But this approach appears to have lost favour within AAFC, with recent federal ag policies either being set unilaterally in Ottawa, or after token consultation, often with individuals chosen directly by the minister or departmental staff, rather than by the industry itself.

One early signal of the change in direction was a decision made in the late 1990s to stop AAFC’s funding of the National Agriculture Environment Committee (NAEC). The stated reason was economic, resulting in savings of $100,000 to $200,000 annually needed to sustain the group. The decision ignored requests from NAEC leaders that the department consider other options for maintaining the group. (The department subsequently announced $600,000 in new funding to provide ‘recognition’ for farmers with environmental achievements).

The decision might have been justified if the valuable forum for consultation and cooperation that NAEC provided had been replaced by something equivalent. But this has not occurred, and the department now seems to employ a disjointed industry approach, with individual farm commodity sectors, general farm groups and activist groups making individual pitches, leaving the department free to make policy on its own.

Following a recent pronouncement by the federal minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada that he wants environmental farm plans on every farm within five years, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada created a national advisory committee to provide advice on a national approach to environmental farm plan development. But the committee was created without input from any farm group except, perhaps, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and involves few farmer reps beyond CFA member organizations. The Grain Growers of Canada learned of the process and managed to secure a seat on the committee just a few day in advance of the meeting set for January 10.

National safety net advisory committees containing representation from all key commodity sectors and provincial governments are long gone. In their place is a smaller safety net advisory committee involving fewer farm reps and no provincial reps. The committee’s key achievement has been recommendations for the creation, design and frequent redesign of the ill-fated Agricultural Income Disaster Assistance (AIDA) program - now called Canadian Farm Income Program (CFIP). The need for programs specifically designed to address grain and oilseed producer needs resulting from targeted U.S. subsidies - 95% of U.S. direct payments go to their grain and oilseed farmers, according to USDA – has received little attention. And the minister and his department seem to have largely written off even this committee as a meaningful source of advice on safety net design.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada informed provincial ministries at a national meeting in December 2001 of their intent to create a new national safety net program with links to environment and food safety. There was no pre-consultation with the provinces, or producer groups, or even with the CFA. And the new program ignores the special needs of grain and oilseed producers despite AAFC’s analyses that show U.S. and EU subsidies are costing Canadian grain and oilseed producers about $1.2 billion per year.

Where can we go from here? Will AAFC and its minister get back to the proven formula of meaningful consultation with ‘producer’ representatives chosen by producer organizations, where no one national general farm group dominates the process? Or must we revert to an even older formula where the main role for farm groups is to criticize from the outside, and throw stones?

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