At both at the federal and provincial levels, we need a huge financial investment in a transition away from industrial agriculture—we have heavy industrial agriculture in the province and other parts of the country—to more natural organic agriculture.
I would say that what we have now in this country are agricultural positions that are unsustainable in the future, particularly in Prince Edward Island, where we depend totally on groundwater. In terms of its groundwater, much of Prince Edward Island is contaminated by chemical fertilizers and nitrates. In fact, there are hundreds and hundreds of people...and 50% of the islanders still receive water from individual wells. Many cannot use or drink their water. In fact, some don't even want to feed it to their animals.
In terms of the sustainability of industrial agriculture in Canada and around the world, there is very little future. Industrial agriculture is highly controlled by corporations. I think elected politicians need to step back and remove themselves from the influence of this huge corporate lobby. That's what we need to do.
In Prince Edward Island, our dream is that we have totally natural organic agriculture. We need policies that will transition farming to that, instead of simply giving lip service and talking occasionally about a few dollars going to it. There isn't sufficient funding for a move to organic farming in this country, in western Canada, Ontario, and the east. Particularly in areas like Prince Edward Island, there is no future for agriculture in the long term if we stick to more chemical fertilizers, more pesticides, more inputs. The lack of fossil fuels may take care of that, but organic agriculture is the future.