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OFA Commentary 3709
 
Gaining with the new structure
 
By Debra Pretty-Straathof, OFA Board Director
 
The Policy Advisory Council seemed like a good idea for the Ontario Federation of Agriculture when OFA was embarking on its restructuring process three years ago.
 
Now that the changes are in place and operating, the  PAC is proving to be a great idea!
 
The PAC is the direct link between Ontario agriculture’s grass roots – individual farmers – and OFA’s smaller board of directors. The changes were agreed to as a means of increasing the effectiveness of OFA.
 
The PAC meets quarterly and examines current issues facing agriculture. From those discussions come recommendations to the Board.
 
As a result of the PAC’s meeting to study Ecological Goods and Services, things have progressed to the point where an application has been filed with the Agricultural Adaptation Council to fund a feasibility study on carbon credit aggregation – taking a look at unanswered questions and risks involved for carbon credit trading and what it will take to make it a reality for Ontario farmers.
 
This study will hopefully provide farmers with answers  about the vulnerabilities and opportunities for farmers within the regulatory and commodity context of Ontario. This application generated 14 letters of support to the Agricultural Adaptation Council from commodity boards, county federations, OMAFRA and a number of individuals.
 
All of this has prompted the AAC to accept, in its entirety, the OFA Carbon Credit Aggregator Project for funding support.
 
Navigating government regulations continues to be an ongoing exercise for the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and its senior partner, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. In the hope of gaining insight into the process to speed efforts of agriculture to achieve improvements to policies and programs for agriculture, the Policy Advisory Council has heard presentations from the Hon. Steve Peters, Speaker of the Ontario Legislature, and Mike Toombs, director, Regulatory Modernization Branch at OMAFRA.
 
Mr. Toombs told PAC members that the goal of the Regulatory Modernization Branch is to try to reduce the burden on business from inappropriate regulation while protecting public interest. So far, he said, base line reduction targets have been set; areas of overlap or duplication have been identified; and OMAFRA has met with stakeholders, including OFA, to promote the Open For Business initiative.
 
The PAC then discussed the positive and negative impacts of regulations on their farming businesses.  Although some regulation was recognized as necessary with positive impacts, the list of negative or unnecessary regulations was long.  PAC members then discussed ways and means of working closely with the government to guard against regulations that negatively impact farm business, either directly or by imposing what is called “unintended consequences”.
 
The PAC noted that involvement in the initial stages of regulation development by farmers would provide opportunity to give the full picture to the government before regulations get developed.
 
While this may seem draconian to the government, it is needed to sustain farming operations and farm competitiveness in Ontario. Such simple consultation will help preserve agriculture’s positive contributions to our economy – grassroots consultation at work!  
 
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