I'm a new farmer. I'm here today representing thousands of farmers from across Canada. NFU members produce a wide variety of foods, and we sell our products in every way, from farmers' markets to supply-managed markets to export markets. The one common goal of all of these diverse farmers is to advocate for policies that will realize food sovereignty in Canada. Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sustainable and sound methods and, even more importantly, the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts food producers and eaters, rather than the demands of markets and corporations, at the heart of food systems and policies.
In contrast to this vision, the Canadian government over the past several decades has pursued a pretty much exclusively export-oriented agricultural policy. This has resulted in Canadians consuming food that is primarily not grown or raised by Canadian farmers or processed by Canadian workers. We export low-priced bulk commodities and import higher-value fruits and vegetables and processed foods that could easily be grown and processed in Canada.
Our food system is not only becoming more export-dependent but is losing its diversity and complexity and becoming ever more brittle in the face of inevitable economic and climate stresses.
Minister MacAulay was given a mandate to put more healthy, high-quality food produced by Canadian farmers and ranchers on the tables of Canadian families. We certainly welcome the emphasis on food “produced by Canadian ranchers and farmers”, which is in line with the fact that 80% of Canadians say that they want access to more local food. However, we are facing a demographic crisis in agriculture that urgently needs to be addressed if we are to meet these goals. The number of farms and farmers in Canada has been declining for over 70 years. The average age of farmers is now 55, and the number of farmers under 35 has declined by 70% since 1990. Seventy-five per cent of farmers are planning to retire in the next 10 years and only 8% have a succession plan in place.
The declining profitability of farming is what has led to this crisis in intergenerational transfer. Since the 1930s, the value of farm products has steadily gone up while farmers' share of that value has gone down despite the fact that yields and efficiency have increased considerably over this period. Why is this? Well, since 1985, agribusiness corporations have captured 98% of farmers' gross revenues. These globally dominant transnational corporations have made themselves the primary beneficiaries of the vast food wealth that's created by Canadian farms. They have extracted almost all of the value in the value chain and they have left Canadian taxpayers to backfill farm incomes. Over $100 billion has been transferred to farmers since 1985. This massive extraction of wealth is the cause of an ongoing farm-income crisis, and it is no wonder that generations of young people have left family farms in search of better opportunities.
The NFU is very much concerned about the contradictions between the national food policy's stated goals and the recommendations of the Advisory Council on Economic Growth led by Dominic Barton. Following Barton's recommendations, the 2017 federal budget's innovation and skills plan sets a target to increase Canada's agrifood exports by 33% to at least $75 billion annually by 2025. The Barton report urges Canada to ramp up food exports by increasing scale, reducing regulations, and automating production. It suggests that this transformation be led by corporate executives. If this advice is followed, we will have even fewer farmers, higher greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, fewer workers, more unhealthy processed foods on the shelves, and less protection for our soil, water, and air. This is a blueprint for corporate rule that does not include governments, farmers, and eaters in the decision-making process.
If a national food policy is to meet its stated goals, it must limit the power of corporations in the food system and support the next generation of food producers by adopting a food sovereignty framework. A food sovereignty framework that focuses on local and domestic procurement of food is important not only because it supports farmers' livelihoods but also because it presents solutions to many of the crises our society is faced with today.
These crises obviously include human health. We know that obesity and diet-related disease are the leading causes of death and disability in this country, and the annual economic costs of unhealthy eating are estimated at $6.3 billion annually. This is a direct result of the corporate food system providing cheap and universal access to processed foods rather than to healthy whole foods.
We are facing a crisis of increasing economic inequality. The profits from food production are increasingly concentrated amongst the corporate elite rather than cycled through local communities. In Canada, one in eight jobs is in agriculture and agrifood, yet the industry is consistently criticized for poorly compensating workers and exploiting vulnerable populations. This exploitation includes an increasing reliance on migrant labour.
We are also in the midst of a crisis of climate change and environmental destruction. Over 30% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide are attributable to industrialized agriculture. At least three quarters of that is the result of the production and use of nitrogen fertilizers in the industrial methods of raising livestock, which are the cornerstones of the corporate food model. It is estimated that for every calorie of food energy that reaches our mouths, we consume 13 calories of fossil fuel energy, which makes our modern food system the least efficient in history.
We believe that all of these problems can be addressed by simply shifting to a food system based on agroecology, which means promoting more direct marketing of whole foods between farmers and eaters, and incentivizing farmers to implement more sustainable practices. It also means encouraging farmers to produce a variety of whole foods, rather than exclusively incentivizing the production of commodity monocrops for export.
The good news is that the 2016 census showed the first uptick in the number of young farmers since 1991. Our research shows that around 80% of new farmers do not come from a farming background. They are people like me who grew up in the city and are getting into farming because they see it as a career that will allow them to address the crises that I just mentioned. They are primarily starting businesses in small and mid-scale ecological production, and are practising direct marketing, which allows them to earn a fair return on their labour. Creating an economic and regulatory framework for direct marketing to thrive will ensure that new farmers can supply healthy food to local markets, create meaningful jobs, and regenerate land and ecosystems. New farmers also need support in accessing land, financing, and training.
We urge the government to start building a food system that prioritizes the interests of Canadian eaters and farmers, rather than the interests of transnational corporations.
Thank you.