Good morning. Here I am. I'm your girl. I'm 27, I'm a woman, and I'm a farmer. I'm a rare find, because I'm a farmer in a growing sector, not a shrinking one. I help to manage a 550-acre organic grain farm. We also produce organic lamb and chicken. I'm proud of how we manage our soil and I'm confident that we're doing things the right way.
You've come a long way to find her, but here I am. I'm a farmer and I'm proud of it. As the youth district director of the National Farmers Union on P.E.I., I'm here representing our concerned young farmers, and at first glance that probably appears to be my primary role. I would argue, though, that my role as a mother in a farming family is perhaps more valuable in this circumstance. More so with agriculture than any other career, farming parents hope to build a legacy and a business they can pass on to their children, in the hopes of allowing them to raise a family and make a living on the land that has been so vigilantly cared for, for generations before them.
Even in a growing sector like organic grains, my family is increasingly uncertain about the likelihood of having anything to pass on at all. So as a young farmer, it is difficult to get excited about spending my life building a company that no one will want to take over or even buy.
As Canadians grow more and more dependent on imported, cheaply produced food, our agricultural community here at home is taking a bigger hit every day. With truly sustainable agriculture relying on a systems approach, such as grain produced for animal feed relies on fertilizer from those animals, once one component of the cycle is gone, the entire community collapses. Unfortunately, that's exactly what we're seeing now. Conceivably, it seems that current policy would suggest getting rid of the commodities that are not making money, and focusing resources on those that are profitable, bigger, or newer. Admittedly, this might seem like a wise fiscal move, but it is laughable in the logic of the cycle of sustainable food production.
Until the recognition of the importance of every aspect of farming is accepted by everyone in positions of authority, Canadian agriculture will continue to decline at an increasing rate, and this decline is directly proportional to the rate at which we will continue to lose young farmers and fail to attract new ones.
However--and here comes the solution--very recently the NFU began working on a project to look at the development of a domestic fair trade system within Canada. After a series of consultations with various stakeholders within food production, including retailers, marketers, chefs, eaters, and of course farmers, some logistics were laid out in terms of developing such a system. It was agreed that farmers are not making money for lack of it, because we know the money is within the wider system, from consumer to farmer. One statistic says that since 1995, despite a 40% drop in payment to farmers, consumers have seen a 22% hike in costs at the store. It's being allocated unfairly within the food system because of a gross economic and power imbalance between farmers needing greater market power to deal with increasingly concentrated suppliers, buyers, and retailers. There are consumers who genuinely care about the survival of the family farm in Canada, and however well-intentioned, they simply don't know how best to support it. A domestic fair trade system would be based on a mutually beneficial relationship from the farmer receiving a fair price to the consumer paying a fair price and the people in between taking a reasonable fee for distribution expenses.
Using the marketing of a fairly traded product to assure consumers they are supporting a farmer and not a corporation would pay dividends not only to Canadian agriculture but would help to increase awareness about the importance of maintaining our own food system. Domestic fair trade would serve to create a new level of trust about the origins and safety of food, building long-term relationships based on respect and confidence between consumers and producers. Farmers have occasionally been made out to be uncaring about the environment or unwilling to cooperate with new legislation, but many times they simply cannot afford to implement new costly changes to methods of farming that have stood the test of time. With a domestic fair trade system, production adheres to social, democratic, and ecological standards, which the farmer would look forward to being able to afford to implement and the consumer would be happy to support.
Through its very nature, domestic fair trade serves to revitalize a sense of community and bring life back to rural Canada. If Canadian agriculture cannot create an enduring connection with Canadians, our agricultural sector is doomed from the start. A domestic fair trade system would begin to create a link between consumers and where their food comes from, ensuring a strong market for Canadian agricultural products right here at home. Very few would argue that life on the farm is an ideal place to raise a family, live a healthy quality of life producing food for oneself and others. Through farm tours and school visits, many farmers will tell you that many kids are genuinely interested to know more, spend more time, and consider a life of farming. Domestic fair trade is one very feasible method of maintaining these dreams and creating future farmers in Canada.
Thank you.