My name is Kate Storey. I'm a co-manager of my family's beef and grain farm here in Manitoba.
I'm speaking on behalf of my son, who is a typical young farmer. He's 23 years old. He's built up some equity. He's engaged to be married, and he wants to farm. He'll be good at it, too, because he's conscientious. He's a problem solver, and he has the dedication to work those long farmer hours.
Unfortunately, my son, like so many other young and aspiring farmers, can't afford to invest his time into any business that does not return a fair wage.
I don't need to go into the details about the cost/price squeeze that faces farmers. I'm sure you understand that when the commodity price falls below the cost of production, the farmer does not get paid for his labour. We older folk can manage on poor wages for quite a while, but the young farmer needs the income to start his business and to raise his family.
You here are the policy-makers, and you have the opportunity to make agriculture work--for the young farmer or against the young farmer. Your decisions can provide the tools young farmers need or you can create barriers to discourage them.
Do you want young farmers? Do you want food to be produced by families or by employees? Is there value in family farms?
The family farm is not just a feel-good symbol of the past. The family farm is a structure that delivers key economic benefits. Simply put, family farms are adaptable, and that adaptability is important to Canada. We're talking about food production here. Banks can fail, carmakers can go bankrupt, but food production must remain stable.
Canada has experimented with the agribusiness model long enough now to recognize its benefits and its shortcomings. Agribusiness has an administrative efficiency and a profit advantage over the family farm. It can seek shareholder investment and can source low-cost inputs. Agribusiness can out-compete the young farmer, but agribusiness is not innovative. The true value of a family farm lies in the brains behind the farm's success and in its ability to innovate. Family farms are more productive, more stable, and produce a higher quality product than any employee-managed agribusiness ever can.
We know that the world population is rising, trade patterns are shifting, and crop disease is on the rise. I believe Canadians want to keep the family on the farm because it makes sense for our economy, our health, and our country's stability. The family farm offers productive efficiency from the personal investment. Family farms are owner-operated, which means the owner is right there to solve the little problems before they become serious. Forty per cent of the world's food supply goes to waste. The farm owner has a vested interest in checking that grain bin to prevent overheating, or making that 2 a.m. trip out to check the calving cow.
Absentee shareholder agribusiness simply doesn't work that way. Agribusiness is notoriously wasteful, and the growing population of the world is better served by the commitment and the efficiency of the family farmer. The family farm offers integrity from the personal connection. The trend to cheap food is reversing into a public demand for quality and accountability. The family farm is ideally suited to deliver on quality. Governments can try to legislate quality and can pay for endless inspectors, but agribusiness is not built to deliver quality. Quality comes from integrity, and integrity comes from that personal connection. Integrity is built right into the structure of the family farm.
This distinction between owner-operated and employee-operated has nothing to do with size. Large farms, small farms; the key is that the operator must be invested in the farm's success. The family farm offers stability from diversity. The role of government should be to promote an economically stable food economy. Stability is derived from diversity. You here have the responsibility to maintain a diverse food economy, which can handle trade disruptions, drought, crop disease, interest rate increases, and energy price challenges.
That means we need our farm decision-makers to be on the ground ready to respond to changes with innovative solutions. It also means that we need variety in farm sizes, variety in crops, variety in production methods, and variety in markets, so that disruptions can't bring down the whole food economy.
Support for young farmers brings variety into agriculture. If you decide to help the young farmer, you must first recognize that they are competing for land and markets against the equity of established operations. Help for the young farmer means levelling the playing field to allow the young farmer to exist.
Parliament can help young farmers by lowering the payment cap on business risk management programs, or by putting a cap on the size of supply management quotas, opening the door to new farms rather than simply growing the old operations. Canadian taxpayers would rather see their subsidy money go to new farm families than to shareholder corporations.
You can strengthen and enforce Canada's competition laws to keep diversity in the fertilizer industry, in fuel, in transport, among grain buyers, and among the meat packers. The free market only works if it is diversified.
You can make international trade work for Canada's farm families by focusing on Canadian quality and by raising the value of the Canada brand.
You can make long-term, low-interest loans available to young farmers so that they can compete against investor dollars.
You can build farm succession programs so that the equity built by the family stays in the family.
Our young farmers are the key to the continuation of the family farm. Canadian agriculture is now at a turning point. Canadians want to know that their food comes from Canadian farm families.
Your policy decisions will determine who is going to be growing our food in the future. Will you invest in our young farmers?
Thank you.