Early discussions have started about the next five-year Agricultural Policy Framework (APF) which will run from April 2028 to March 2033.
The Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) hosted a summit on the new APF Wednesday in Saskatoon.
The event included a producer panel and one of the questions asked was what each person wanted to see included in the new APF.
Trevor Green is a Livestock Producer from the Moosomin area. He would like to see an emphasis on food sovereignty.
"There's so many things we can expand in this province to value add to our products that we grow, like beef for instance. We don't have enough kill plants to buy beef locally. We don't have enough pork plants to buy pork locally. We're importing lettuce and tomatoes from Arizona when we have one of the largest greenhouses in Saskatchewan growing trees, which blows my mind.
"We have an AI data center coming through Regina that's going to have lots of waste heat. Why is there not greenhouses on that growing food? If we can grow more food in this province, I think we're better off all along and I'd like to see some funding go towards that."
Chris Prycyk is a grain producer from the Fillmore area. For him, bringing agriculture to the forefront of the economy is the biggest priority.
"We're not just an industry, we're an economic driver provincially and federally. We need to look at ag as a driver of the economy, so let's invest in ag instead of looking at how much of this piece of the pie are we going to carve up. Let's make the pie bigger and the benefits will come downstream through, you know, this expression of the best thing to do is put money in a farmer's hand because we'll spend it."
Adrienne Ivey has cattle and grain on the family farm in the Ituna area. She emphasized the importance of business risk management programs, not only for the grain sector, but for cattle producers as well.
"I think that we all can understand right now the fear that there is around trade and exports and the uncertainty around that and that alone is a huge, huge thing that weighs on farmers' minds. I think that the livestock industry here in Saskatchewan specifically is so, so determined by a very, very select few of companies that set our fat cattle market prices. That is a giant, giant risk to our industry and something that I have no doubt that will eventually burst this high price bubble that we're currently enjoying."
Ivey says AgriStability is not an easy program to understand, but after doing a "deep dive", she believes it is a valuable program. She also gives high marks to AgriInvest, calling it a self directed program that is left up to the individual farmer and is easy to administer and at a relatively low cost.
Engagement phase underway
Representatives from the federal and provincial governments provided outlines on how the APF discussions will proceed over the next couple of years.
The first step currently underway is called the "engagement phase".
Amy Standish, the Assistant Deputy Minister of Policy and Programs at the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, was one of the presenters at the Summit.
"There's been a big focus right now on growth and competitiveness, which I don't think is a surprise even hearing the conversations this morning," said Standish. "We've heard lots about science research and innovation and the importance of that to the industry. We've heard about resiliency, which again can mean different things and so how you define that, but it's everything from some of those environmental pieces to how do we withstand some of the economic shocks out in the system. And then lastly is the markets and trade piece, which again I don't think is a surprise and we've seen that also in past frameworks."
Standish answered questions from the floor, including one from APAS President Bill Prybylski.
Prybylski said, "The current suite of business risk management programs had a heavy emphasis on the environment and environmental sustainability and all those types of buzzwords. To quote a phrase from the late Bill Campbell, 'As producers, we can't be in farming in the green if we're farming in the red.' Do you anticipate the next policy framework having maybe less emphasis on environmental sustainability and more emphasis on economic sustainability for producers?
Standish answered, "I would say all things always right the conversations to unfold depending on what we're hearing from industry at those tables. There's been a definite tone in the discussions to date around economic growth and competitiveness and so we haven't had the same level of conversation diving into say the terms of sustainability and environment that we would have seen under Sustainable CAP at this same time. And so a lot of discussion about looking at the world around us and how important it is to make sure that our producers are profitable.
"I would say economic growth and competitiveness has been the top discussion point that I've seen at the tables so far and a lot of what we're hearing from industry not just here in Saskatchewan but across the country, so it will be very interesting as the engagements go on to see if those things remain but open to hearing feedback on that."
The plan is to have a policy statement ready for the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Agriculture Ministers meeting in Halifax in July.
(With files from Neil Billinger, CJWW)
