Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thanks to the committee for having us in to make a presentation.
My name is Ron Bonnett. I'm a beef farmer from northern Ontario, but I'm president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
The CFA represents about 200,000 farmers from across the country, and we represent a number of different commodity organizations. There are a few points I would like to make at the start about agriculture being core to economic activity in both rural and urban communities. We fuel jobs with our domestic production, as well as being a significant contributor to export sales to hundreds of other countries.
In general, when it comes to federal policy it should be designed with the idea of keeping farmers and farm businesses competitive in the worldwide scene. Taxes, investment, infrastructure, regulations, and fees should be designed with our competitors in mind and making sure that there are parallel standards, taxes, and fees in our area compared to other areas.
We see agriculture with potential opportunity. Global population that is projected to increase, climate change, and new markets emerging for agriculture products could create huge opportunities for economic activity, job development, and growth in the agriculture sector, not just at the primary sector but through the whole system.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture is currently working with partners in the whole value chain on developing overall strategies to capture some of these opportunities. In future presentations, that will guide some of our requests.
There are lots of opportunities out there, but there are some investments needed in the short term. We've decided to focus our request this year on three key areas. You have a full written brief in front of you.
The first recommendation is to deal with changes to some of the existing programming. I don't think it's any secret that the AgriStability program has not responded to some of the financial issues facing the agriculture sector, particularly livestock. We are recommending that there be changes made immediately to the AgriStability program, removing the negative margin viability test and increasing negative margin coverage from 60% to 70%.
Also, if you could provide farmers with the choice of having either the top 15% of the reference margin coverage or participation in the AgriInvest program, that would allow farmers to make the most appropriate choice.
Also, reference margin issues are a problem because of long-term declines in prices, particularly in the livestock sector. If you could choose from the three-year average reference period or take the overall higher average of a five-year period....
Additionally, to inject money into the farm community immediately, we would remind you of a promise made in the previous election to enact a 2ยข per litre reduction in the diesel fuel excise tax. That would directly put money in farmers' pockets for the 2010-11 crop year.
Recommendation two is designed around creating a bridge to the future as we design new programming going forward. The government did approve an AgriFlexibility program, and we congratulate them for that, but we had asked that the non-business risk management clause be removed to provide some flexibility to put specific solutions within different regions of Canada.
On bridging to the future, we would ask that the federal government work towards restoring investment in research to pre-1994 levels. Research has been cut over a large number of years. As I said, we're poised to capture new and emerging markets, everything from energy markets to bio products, and that investment in research would give us the edge to move ahead.
Finally, we will be asking for a co-op investment plan, which would give a 125% tax deduction to members who invest in their co-op's preferred shares. This would spark value-added investment.
Thank you.