I think that's the question: what kind of agriculture do we want? What kind of food system do we want? Do we want an industrial one? That's what we have right now.
Is it working? Well, we heard a lot of speakers here highlight the fact that it's not working for farmers and farming families, and I would argue it's not working for consumers either. Consumers aren't eating or getting the kind of food they want to eat. We see that, because there has been such a high increase in the demand for organic foods. But the whole organic industry is problematic also, if we don't ensure that it doesn't fall into the hands of the transnationals.
What we want is a food system that speaks to food sovereignty. What we want is a food system that is an approach to food production and food consumption, in which farming families produce healthy food that is grown in ways that sustain the earth. That's one of the things the women in this study kept highlighting: a deep concern for the environment. I think that now the world community is finally acknowledging the problem of global warming.
So food sovereignty offers some important insights into how governments can formulate agricultural policy. It's based on the idea that governments and peoples have the obligation and the right to define their own national agricultural policies to ensure the well-being of their populations, rather than depending on an international institution—for example, like the WTO—to decide what kinds of agricultural policies we want in Canada.