Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, all, for the opportunity to speak to you on this very important question.
My name is Phil Mount. As you know, I'm the NFU vice-president of operations.
I think you've heard from your first panel today many of the important questions on the transfer of intergenerational farms to family members. I want to broaden this out because, right at the end of that session, you started to address some important questions on intergenerational land transfers to other farmers, non-family intergenerational transfers.
All across Canada, members of the NFU, the National Farmers Union, have prioritized research and action on policy enabling young and new farmers to succeed in business. Many of us own our own farms, so why is this top of mind? Well, it's because many of our members are also the determined, dynamic, young, new immigrant farmers who are our future. They are struggling to make it, particularly in years three to 10 of farming. They're often unable to access capital, equipment to scale, knowledge and, especially, farmland. Prices driven up by speculation and the use of farmland as an investment vehicle have put the cost of land well beyond the productive value of that land. Mr. Perron touched on this near the end of the last session.
Those eager farmers are stopped before they begin because they often do not inherit land. If they rent, they pour years of work and sweat equity into the land, often only to find it sold just as the soils are improved.
We need those keen farmers to succeed. The National Farmers Union is pleased to be offering a program to increase the possibility of new and young equity-deserving farmers succeeding in agriculture. Our program “The Exchange”, which is supported by the AAFC AgriDiversity program, is oversubscribed with eager young farmers who want to learn all they can. In Ontario, we're pleased to be working with other organizations to provide training to new entrants and to farm employers.
There's much more to be done—and quickly—because Canada's loss of farmers is alarming. We're all getting older. I'm a case in point. In fact, if our younger farmer members were not working so hard today, they would have been speaking to this panel. However, they are working—on rented land, in co-operative structures, however they can make it work—because they believe in wresting control of their lives through farming.
Canada's total outstanding debt, as has been mentioned earlier today, is close to $146 billion. This means that retiring farmers generally need to sell their farms to pay off debt and have an income to live on in retirement.
Strategic policy action is needed to ensure that this next generation of farmers succeeds, with better access to land, equipment, education and training that doesn't result in crippling debt and unmanageable risk. New entrants must have access to affordable land through non-family farm succession supports and financial support for the critical first decade of their establishment.
I'd like to sort of echo and follow up on Mr. Perron's suggestion toward the end of that last session. We have many options for how we might accomplish this. I want to focus on two.
The first we're calling a foodshed lands program. In collaboration with community-owned land trusts and land banks, we develop a non-market farmland acquisition program in peri-urban areas of every province to ensure that class one and two farmland is available for food production at rental and lease rates aligned with the land's food production value. Therefore, farmers who produce food for sale in a nearby city with low-emissions production methods that protect water quality and biodiversity would be provided secure tenure on these lands.
This fund would buy three billion dollars' worth of farmland annually. This would promote long-term food security and rural livelihoods, and it would prevent our best farmland from becoming urban sprawl or highways. Look at it like this: Prudent and forward-thinking municipalities protect their drinking water sources through watershed protection. This program would protect the long-term agricultural value of our municipality's foodshed lands.
The second suggestion here is an income stability supplement. Income stability is the single biggest challenge to new farmers as they start their new business or take over an existing farm operation. An income stability supplement would allow younger people to commit to farming in a manner that bridges the seasonal income gap or reverses the trend of aging farmers, and perhaps reduces the need for off-farm employment as a survival strategy.
With a guarantee of stable income year-round, farmers would be more able to invest in their own infrastructure, improve their production equipment and practices, and potentially hire staff and create jobs. This supplement could also allow for farmers to make more ecological improvements to their farm production methods to improve biodiversity and adapt to a changing climate.
While an income supplement for new farms would not directly address high farmland prices, it would make it easier for young and new farmers to take on the risk of farmland ownership and possibly slow the rate at which farmland is being bought by foreign investors. It would also help new farmers develop viable businesses. The guarantee of a consistent cash flow would encourage them to spend in their communities, circulating cash through the local rural economy.
In the future, an expanded income supplement for all farmers could also reduce the pressure on older farmers to sell their land—since their biggest retirement asset is often their land—and open up new avenues [Technical difficulty—Editor] for both new and retiring farmers. Along with the young farmers, we strongly recommend that the project be designed to encourage participation from women, visible minorities, indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities.
Programs like the two I've discussed here would directly address the biggest challenges we face in addressing the intergenerational transfer of farms and ensuring sustainable farming communities in this country.
Thank you.
