설명
As Canada’s agricultural policy framework approaches its scheduled 2028 renewal, industry leaders are urging decision-makers to move beyond broad priority statements and address urgent global realities. With geopolitical shifts, trade vulnerabilities, and climate impacts accelerating, the sector requires targeted, adaptable programming rather than standard administrative updates.
In advance of Thursday's webinar on the topic, Lyndsey Smith sat down with Greg Meredith, a former Deputy Minister and senior official with both Global Affairs Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to talk about key aspects of the next ag policy framework, as discussed in Meredith's paper, published last week. (Read that here)
First up, Meredith offers an assessment on where the Halifax Statement lands, coming out of the Federal-Provincial-Territorial (FPT) Ministers' Meeting last week.
While acknowledging the predictability provided by the federal-provincial coordination model, Meredith cautioned that high-level mission statements often dilute strategic focus. "The Halifax Statement... leaves me with the feeling that it's kind of business as usual with a lot of... statements of good intention, but no real sense of a challenge that we face that's immediate, that's acute," he says. But the framework statement misses completely the critical contextual realities facing agriculture now and into the future, like trade weaponization and changing U.S. economic posture.
Meredith says that existing risk management tools are failing to meet farm-level needs due to under-funding or lack of speed in delivery. To build meaningful sector resilience, he advocates for modernizing programs through private sector innovation, establishing a dedicated trade risk facility, and transitioning environmental programming toward results-based outcomes rather than simple practice adoption.
Website: https://www.realagriculture.com/
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