Thank you.
I am a farmer and a mother of the next generation of farmers. Founded in 1981, our family farm has grown to approximately 700 acres of organic vegetables. The third generation on this land, my sons and nephews, have chosen to make their careers in farming food in the family business. We grow carrots and a variety of other root crops, as well as leafy greens and cooking vegetables. We are also a distributor, providing market access for a network of other local farms.
Thank you for inviting us to participate in your study of this critically important issue. Canada’s food guide recommends, as you heard from Mr. Lemaire earlier, that half our plate be made up of produce, horticultural crops, at every meal. We can’t overstate how important it is for Canada to have a thriving horticulture sector to provide this food.
I am a farmer and I need to make a living. I need affordable seed, affordable land, suitable water for irrigation when necessary, a return that allows me to pay employees a fair wage and provide safe working conditions, and as predictable a climate as possible to accomplish all of this. We know that long-lasting GHGs will keep warming the planet even if we stop emitting today. We must adapt, and we must drastically reduce our emissions.
You as members of the agriculture committee have a duty to do everything you can to reduce emissions from the oil and gas industry and to stop the destruction of the wild areas and biodiversity that remove atmospheric CO2.
The existing BRM solutions are designed for broadacre crops and so do not work well for horticulture, and even less well in the context of climate disruption. The costs of applying can exceed any potential return if AgriStability is triggered. The high value per acre, diversity and perishability of our crops make damage assessment so complex that it is extremely difficult to create formulas to assess weather and storm losses. Thus, any compensation available is low and may not be adequate to keep affected farms in production, particularly if claims are processed so slowly that the next revenue-generating crop is unduly delayed.
We must invest in the on-farm infrastructure needed to adapt to our changing climate. Some specific examples are water treatment infrastructure for sustainable irrigation, photovoltaics integrated into shade structures and greenhouse design and technology that integrate photovoltaics and heat storage. We also need public plant breeding of locally adapted horticultural crop varieties made available royalty-free to growers.
Class 1 and 2 farmland located near urban centres must be protected for our food sovereignty. Canada needs policy solutions to ensure that this land is protected and reserved for farmers growing food. To ensure that farmers can succeed under changing climate conditions, the NFU proposes that AAFC establish a Canadian farm resilience agency to provide farmers in horticulture and other sectors all across the country with trustworthy advice delivered by independent extension personnel who are not tied to agribusiness corporations.
With public agronomists to provide practical advice and researchers to develop new methods, farmers can increase their farms’ resilience to climate change and reliably produce the food Canadians need. Spending just a dollar or two per acre of Canadian farmland could result in the necessary adaptation and resilience. Savings from preventing crop losses and BRM payments would greatly exceed the cost of extension services, so these important services for farmers could be had at no net cost. By promoting the resilience needed for Canadian horticulture farmers, we can expand their market share and keep a much higher proportion of the Canadian food dollar within our economy.
We are here to address the climate impacts threatening the economic viability of our farms. We also face a rapid rise in costs of production, accompanied by downward pressure on the price we can command.
The farmer’s share of the consumer food dollar is small, so grocery store price increases disproportionately benefit the large retailers. Increasing ownership concentration in wholesale and food processing further depresses our returns. Falling returns are creating a structural deficit. The difference is being taken out of the land, farm workers' labour and the farmer's income. Failure to address these issues means ever fewer Canadian horticultural farms; less of our food being grown in Canada; and vulnerability to environmental, political and economic conditions in the countries our imported food comes from.
Addressing these overarching issues is supported by Canada's food policy vision, which is: “All people in Canada are able to access a sufficient amount of safe, nutritious and culturally diverse food.”