Shouting into the void | Farmtario

Two years ago, I wrote a column highlighting the mismatch between the level of public investments in major industrial projects, and the Canadian agriculture’s share of the purse. At that time, my criticism was levelled specifically at what was then an estimated 10-year, $13.7 billion investment in a Volkswagon electric vehicle battery plant in St. Thomas.

At the time, the latest federal funding program for Canada’s entire agriculture sector was $3.5 billion over the forthcoming five years — less than half of the battery plant subsidy, if extrapolated an additional five years.

Not long afterwards, the federal government updated its subsidy estimates by adding a few billion dollars for Volkswagon.

The return on this investment looks a bit shaky. Indeed, we’re heading into some tough times as a country, much of which spurred by war criminals in the Kremlin, the malevolent talking leader in the White House, and other malign actors.

Much digital ink has been spilled about our own complacency, too, particularly when it comes to defence spending, infrastructure, and such like.

There’s also been a lot of talk about righting that complacency. And yet, agriculture — a critical industry repeatedly identified as having major growth potential — still seems like a black sheep.

The 2017 “Barton” report from the federal Advisory Council on Economic Growth, analyses from the University of Guelph and University of the Fraser Valley, Bioenterprise Canada, the Canadian Agri-Food Policy institute and others, all point to the agriculture sectors potential to accomplish much of the growth and development we’re going to need — more than ever, given we seem to have been forced back to an international environment characterized by the imperialism and mercantilism of bygone centuries.

We see a lot of photos where politicians such as Doug Ford, Danielle Smith and Mark Carney are wearing hard hats and gazing eagerly at rolls of aluminum, car parts, and all manner of industrial material.

But photos in agricultural settings, or pertaining to food and agribusiness, are fewer and far between.

Agriculture generates seven per cent of this country’s gross domestic product. For comparison, the automotive sector contributes 0.7 per cent. Agriculture also exists across the country, whereas other industries are more regionally concentrated.

The immensity of career opportunities in agri-food could address unemployment, even remedy anxiety among younger generations facing a tumultuous and uncertain job market and seemingly insurmountable cost of living. Upgrades to rail and port infrastructure used to export Canadian commodities also shore up national security, while reassuring our customers of Canada’s trade reliability.

Investments in a sector as diverse and diffuse as agriculture could help insulate the wider economy from singular shocks (more eggs in more baskets, if you will).

Making serious investments in agriculture could achieve all these things, and more. But it never seems top of mind for those at the top.

What do we have to do — indeed, what can we do — as an industry to help policy makers and more of the general public see the value of agriculture and agribusiness? What are we doing wrong? Right now, it’s as though they look at our farms but don’t actually see them.

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