"Under a Mike Harris government agriculture will regain its fair share of government support," stated the 1994 Report of the Mike Harris Task Force on Rural Economic Development. "That is why there are NO cuts to agriculture in our policy plan The Common Sense Revolution."

The Harris government has only partially kept this promise. There have been no major cuts to many farm programs. But there have been substantial reductions in spending on programs such as agricultural extension, quality inspection and research. While most of these cuts occurred during the first year of the present mandate, the negative effects are long term.

An analysis by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture shows that while the spending budget of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), for all items except property tax rebates, has been generally stable since 1994/95 (actually increasing slightly to reach $293 million in 1996/97), expenditures are far lower than the $414- to 453-million levels of years 1990/91 through 1992/93. When inflation is taken into account, the reduction has been even greater. Ontario government spending on agriculture and food declined from an average of about 1.0 per cent of the total provincial budget in the late 1980s, to about 0.6 per cent in 1996/97. Viewed another way, current spending on agricultural programs is only about 70 per cent of what it was in 1987/88, even as total provincial spending has increased to about 150 per cent of the 1987/88 level. It is for good reason that the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario said (prior to the 1995 election) that "if all government ministries had experienced downsizing similar to OMAFRA, Ontario would not be facing its current debt crisis!"

Compared to other provinces, Ontario provincial spending on agriculture and food is also very low. Data published by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in September 1997 show that the Ontario government spends 3.4 per cent on agriculture and food, relative to the value of the provincial agri-food gross domestic product (GDP), versus an average of 6.0 per cent for the weighted average of all Canadian provinces.

The facts are equally clear on where provincial funds should be reinvested. Research stands at the top of the list of priorities, both in funds provided for contractual research at the University of Guelph and through other programs. But agricultural extension (for which expenditures have been slashed drastically in recent years) is equally crucial. What good is research if the infrastructure does not exist to transfer this information to the agriculture and food industry?

To date, the ministry’s new emphasis on "rural" has been funded almost exclusively using funds transferred from agricultural programs. We welcome the expanded mandate, but the expansion should not come at the expense of agriculture and food.

And Ontario provincial spending on farm safety net programs is generally much less than in other Canadian provinces...and far less than it was only a few years ago.

Finally, we note with some unease a pattern by the government to make major chops in permanent program spending and then provide new, short-term money via programs such as Grow Ontario ($15 million over two years) and the present Rural Jobs Strategy ($30 million over three years). There is nothing wrong with change, and this can be a useful means of permitting money to be used on new ventures. But you also need some basic ministry infrastructure for program delivery, and longer-term financial commitments to facilitate longer-term planning. Too often the focus of short-term programs has been on how to spend the money within a short time period, rather than on long-term needs. In the case of the Grow Ontario program, about one-quarter of the allotted $15 million was unallocated and returned to the provincial treasurer because of an apparent lack of applications suited to the one-year focus of the program.

Agriculture and food is Ontario’s second biggest industry, and by far the most important in non-metropolitan areas. The industry represents 672,000 jobs, $22.2 billion in provincial GDP – about 40 per cent of the total agri-food GDP for Canada. This is an industry characterized by major growth, and exceptional potential.

It’s time for public reinvestment in the Ontario agriculture and food economy.