Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
My name is Katie Fettes, and I am the director of policy and research with Canadian Organic Growers. I'm joined today by Gillian Flies, an organic farmer and director with COG.
COG is Canada's oldest organic and regenerative agriculture organization. Since 1975, we've worked with farmers, researchers and partners across the country to support resilient and profitable farming systems.
Canada's agriculture sector is operating in an increasingly volatile environment shaped today by climate change impacts, rising input costs, supply chain disruptions, geopolitical instability and difficult generational renewal. For these reasons, we believe resilience should be a core objective guiding the next policy framework and the evolution of business risk management programs. This means we need to shift from predominantly reactive risk management toward balancing with proactive risk reduction that helps farmers become less vulnerable to shocks before they occur and in the future.
An intentional focus on strategic supply chains in high-potential sectors can help accelerate agri-food resilience. Using organic agriculture and agri-food is one approach that offers certain opportunities in this regard. Research from COG's organic task force recently found that organic farming systems can embed risk mitigation directly into farm management in a number of ways, including through reducing dependence on external inputs and working on soil health.
Despite strong consumer demand, we continue importing the majority of organic products in Canada—CFIA estimates up to 80%—while competing against jurisdictions investing far more aggressively in growing organic production and markets.
There are also specific barriers to growth in Canada. During the organic transition period, farmers face management changes, yield variability, new costs and uncertainty before gaining access to organic markets. Much of this risk is currently carried by individual farmers alone.
At the same time, many organic and transitioning farmers face challenges accessing the BRM programs. Organic pricing, practices and transitions are not always well incorporated into program design. Canada cannot afford a risk management system that overlooks or unintentionally discourages farming practices that proactively reduce risk exposure and make Canada's food system more resilient and competitive.
I’ll now hand it over to my colleague Gillian Flies to share some examples from the farm.