OFA Commentary #2309
 
Keeping MPPs informed
 
By Bette Jean Crews, President, Ontario Federation of Agriculture
 
[June 8, 2009] - Although Ontario’s Members of Provincial Parliament have left Queen’s Park for the summer months, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) has plans to keep in touch, updating them on agriculture’s issues. We have found this a good time to meet with MPPs in their constituency offices and discuss issues that are important to farmers.
 
OFA’s list of issues is extensive and continues to grow. Most MPPs will have heard many of the topics before, but until we get resolution on agriculture’s priorities, we have to repeat many of the points.
 
Farmers are proud of their contributions to the province’s economy, but if we can get government to make the changes we will outline to our MPPs over the summer months, that contribution can be amplified – and the lives of our farmers and their families will also be improved.
 
The OFA is grateful to the McGuinty government for a number of recent measures introduced in Ontario – things like the Green Energy Act and its plans to move away from coal-fired electricity plants to the use of biomass. Farmers see a huge opportunity for them to get into the production of biomass and supplement their other farm income sources.
 
Energy is fast becoming a promising revenue source for farmers. They are rapidly adapting their facilities to the production of electricity using one-farm technologies like biodigesters and wind turbines. OFA wants to ensure that our rural residents and our farm land are not adversely affected in the process.
 
Another energy-related source of income is looking increasingly promising for Ontario’s farmers. Premier McGuinty has recently turned his attention to cap and trade systems related to carbon credits. Agriculture is ideally positioned to capitalize in the cap and trade markets.
 
Because of its ability to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, agriculture can look forward to selling carbon credits to industries that produce an excess of carbon, adding to the greenhouse gas problems of the world. This is one of a number of ecological goods and services farmers can provide to society and reap the financial benefits.
 
Before this can be done, however, farmers need their government to establish a carbon trading system that recognizes and compensates them for their contribution to society.
 
OFA will also be calling on MPPs to support legislative changes that will remove oppressive regulations – regulations that stifle productivity and competitiveness at the farm level. We also need the support of MPPs to change the farmland property tax system. For this to be done, they need to recognize what constitutes a modern farming enterprise, and what’s necessary to achieve value retention activities within the production side of farming.
 
We have been asking government to update its standards for compensation for damage to crops and livestock done by wildlife. The compensation schedule used by the government is more than a quarter century old, and farmers are seeing increasing losses caused by wildlife each year. Ontario livestock farmers are in desperate need of government action to maintain a viable deadstock service.

 
OFA continues to talk to government about business risk management programs needed by farmers to protect them from a variety of risks in the production of crops and livestock. We have repeatedly called on government to introduce programs and policies that will encourage younger farmers to enter the business. Stability, predictability, profitability will encourage new and existing farmers as well,  but like the young people wanting to farm, we’re still waiting.
 
Ontario’s horticultural producers dearly need risk management programs for their operations, so this is another topic OFA will be presenting to MPPs as they return to their constituencies for the summer.
 
OFA and its county federation partners will be working throughout the summer to deliver these messages to Ontario’s MPPs.
 
-30-