Editorial
Progress Through Partnership Achieving
Effective Consultation
The ongoing consultation
process between government and farm groups serves a variety of purposes. Ideally,
it results in benefits to everyone involved – governments, who can launch
programs that are realistic and accepted by the farm community; and farmers, who
rightfully demand programs that are consistent with the needs, challenges and
opportunities of today’s farming business.
Achieving such results depends, as it does in any other negotiation process, on
the openness, responsiveness and good will of all the parties involved.
Two very different issues currently under development – one extremely targeted
and specific, the other all-encompassing and somewhat nebulous – will have
substantial impact on the future course of Ontario agriculture. Although consultation
efforts have been a required component in both processes, the approaches taken
(and the anticipated results) are far different.
First, a success story. Little has galvanized the Ontario farm community as quickly
as the release of proposed regulations under the province’s recently passed
Nutrient Management Act (Bill 81). Concerns about the impact of the new regulations
on farmers’ ability to operate, on their already wafer-thin margins, and
even on their privacy, have dominated conversations at farm meetings for months.
The local, farm and even national media have played along, emphasizing and perhaps
igniting the controversy.
Consultation meetings held across the province after the release of each stage
of the regulations sent a clear and consistent message to government: unless substantial
changes were completed before implementation deadlines, requirements under Bill
81 would create an enormous burden on Ontario’s farm community. Farm organizations,
including commodity groups such as OCPA, and broader coalitions such as the Ontario
Farm Environmental Coalition, provided clear options that would decrease the burden
on farmers while maintaining the potential environmental benefits that the legislation
offers.
In January, planned consultations on the Stage II regulations were temporarily
suspended. When meetings resumed in February, government personnel brought forward
a series of possible amendments designed to improve the regulations, provide clarification
on issues of concern, and reduce the administrative burden on farmers (see related
article in this issue).
There are still areas to be resolved, and there will no doubt be elements of the
NM regs that continue to meet with some opposition from the farm community. But
it is clear that government heard farmers’ concerns, and moved quickly to
act upon them. That’s how the consultation process should work.
Less successful have been efforts to achieve substantive input into programs proposed
under the federal Agricultural Policy Framework. Despite the April 1 deadline,
farm groups and their members have had the opportunity to scrutinize only one
of the five ‘pillars’ – Business Risk Management – and efforts
to bring about needed revisions to its proposed program structure have been largely
ineffective.
Commodity organizations, coalition groups and general farm organizations at both
the provincial and national levels have been united in their call for a delay
to implementation of new BRM programs until they can be redesigned to meet farmers’
needs and provide at least the same level of protection against income loss as
that offered by current safety net programming.
They have offered up proposed revisions and alternatives which to date have been
largely ignored. Even advice provided by the National Safety Nets Advisory Committee,
a group formed specifically to provide the Minister and his staff with such input,
has gone unheeded.
And as unsatisfactory as that process may be, at least the farm community has
some idea of what is entailed within BRM programming in the APF-world. Development
of the other 4 pillars of the program – Environment, Science and Innovation,
Food Safety and Renewal – has proceeded on a parallel track, with virtually
no input from farmers or the groups that represent them.
There are significant indications that the development of these pillars is nearly
complete. What will new emphasis on environment and food safety mean for farmers?
Will increased demands and accountability be accompanied by transitional support
and ongoing compensation for providing a demonstrably broader range of societal
benefits? We don’t know. Who will determine priorities for enhanced research
and innovation efforts? We don’t know that either.
All we’ve been told so far is that there’s no need to worry and everything
is fine – a paternalistic approach that has long lost any credibility within
the farm sector. What’s missing is the fundamental recognition that designing
a successful program requires the involvement of those who: 1) have a practical,
working knowledge of the subject area, and 2) are most affected by the results
of the decision-making process, whether for better or worse.
From the outset, OCPA has supported the need for a long-term agricultural policy
for Canada in order to provide stability to the industry. Our position on that
issue has not changed. But as the initial releases of both the NM Regs and the
proposed BRM programs have proven, farm programs developed without farmer input
tend to be far too theoretical and model-based, far removed from the practical
realities of operating a sustainable farm business.
Ontario’s farm groups have shown their willingness to work cooperatively
with each other and with governments to resolve concerns surrounding the APF.
We have asked on numerous occasions for the opportunity to provide meaningful
input on issues that affect our members directly. What we haven’t determined
is why no one seems to be listening.