Agriculture Ministers Drive Growth through Innovation, Trade and Effective Programming
Agriculture Ministers met today to discuss the challenges and opportunities for the agriculture sector and the road ahead to a better bottom line for Canadian farmers.
Ministers discussed the need to make long-term strategic investments in innovation in addition to exploring insurance-based and other options to make sure business risk management (BRM) programs work for farmers. While governments will have provided approximately $6 billion in BRM programming over the past three years, they acknowledge producers’ concerns and remain committed to ensuring that programs are responsive and effective. Today’s fastest and largest AgriRecovery response of $450 million to prairie flooding demonstrates the programs at work.
“This has been a tough season for prairie farmers and today’s announcement shows that we have the tools in place to respond to the needs of Canada’s farm community,” said federal Minister Ritz. “Ministers around this table always work to put farmers first and today we’re delivering much-needed assistance for our hard-working Canadian farm families.”
“This spring has been frustrating for many farmers who haven’t been able to get their crops seeded or had seeded crops flooded out,” said Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Bob Bjornerud. “The record rainfall producers have received makes this truly a disaster situation and I hope the support we are providing will help address the challenges facing farm families.”
Recognizing that current BRM programs are not intended to address long-term farm income declines, industry and governments agree that smart investments will help producers create new market opportunities.
Recent federal and provincial trade missions were also highlighted. This team effort, including Minister Ritz’s latest mission to China, secured a breakthrough agreement allowing staged market access for beef and tallow.
As part of the ongoing work to create market opportunities for producers, Ministers announced a roadmap that would see the creation of pilot projects targeted at expanding inter-provincial trade in meat. This initiative will increase processors’ ability to move product across the country in keeping with Canada’s high domestic standard.
Ministers agreed with an industry panel about the importance of maintaining a strictly science-based regulatory system to spur innovation and drive the agricultural economy, create new markets, and increase profitability for producers. Traceability, food safety, market access and a focus on young and beginning farmers are also key to the successor policy framework to Growing Forward.
The next annual meeting of Federal/Provincial/Territorial Ministers of Agriculture will be held July 7-8, 2011, in St. Andrews, New Brunswick.
I am a professor and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Manitoba. Prior to my shift into academic administration I was an active part of the Agricultural Engineering (now Biosystems Engineering) department.
Clearly this has been a bad year for agriculture and there is a need to support the basis for our provincial and national economy (others may disagree with my opinion). I concur that there is a continuing need for science based support, but I’m concerned that science alone only provides answers, not solutions. Professionals like Engineers and Agrologists should be included in the mix of inputs.
Over the past 10 years I have written a column for the Keystone Professional, the APEGM newsletter. As I read the commentary above, I was reminded of a column I write for their September 2002 issue relating to professional responsibility. If Engineers are a part of the group who can work to a solution, then our responsibility for what we do is an important element. I have copied that column below for your consideration. Hopefully you will se the links that drove me to forward this material.
Ron Britton – W 474 6059 H – 736 2252
Thoughts on Design
. . . and just who is responsible?
M.G.(Ron) Britton, P.Eng.
As I contemplated the passing of an old family friend, I recalled a conversation we had about 20 years ago. I was visiting my home town and Frank and I were discussing the “local” baseball team. He commented that only three or four of the players lived in the district – the rest came from surrounding towns that no longer had teams. The conversation drifted from baseball to the local rink and the difficulty they were having keeping it open. We agreed that it was a situation that was all too common in the rural areas of western Canada.
And then he shocked me by saying, “you realize this is all your fault”.
My shock must have been obvious because he quickly followed up by noting that the “you” he was referring to was my profession – not me, personally. We left it there, but the comment kept haunting me.
Two or three years later, on another visit home, we were sitting in the shade, enjoying some of the end product of the previous year’s barley crop, when I reminded him of his comment, and asked him to explain what he meant. He thought a moment and then provided me with his observation of the link between engineering design and fewer prairie baseball teams.
At that time Frank and his son were farming the land he and my dad had farmed, plus the land that had supported four other families when I was growing up. They were able to do this because of the improvements in farm equipment that were the direct result of engineering design. Wider, bigger, faster, more efficient equipment let the two of them farm more land with less effort. So, the up side was that they farmed more land but didn’t work as hard. The down side was that there were four fewer families associated with that particular land base. And the same story could be repeated for every farmer who was still functioning in the district.
Simply put, my home town was now about 33% of what it had been. 67% fewer ball players. 67% fewer students. 67% fewer grocery stores. It explained much of what I saw when I looked around me.
He acknowledged that engineers had simply responded to a demand for better equipment, and had responded very well. He agreed that the creation of this equipment allowed him to survive in spite of the fact that grain prices were about the same as when I had last helped him harvest. He assigned no fault to the profession, but he saw a clear linkage between our “success” and rural de-population.
In the intervening years, we revisited the issue as we watched the “local” ball team continue to play where I once played. I was never able to advance a plausible argument that de-linked engineering design from rural depopulation. My discussions with Frank clarified my thinking on the responsibilities our profession bears for the designs we create. His insight provided me with the understanding necessary to explore Billy Koen’s concept of “best change”. “Best” depends on the perspective we bring to a question. The new machinery was “best” for Frank and his son. It was not “best” for population retention.
We engineers have the skills required to bring new and better “things” into existence. The world we live in today is the direct result of the successful application of those skills. Electricity, cars, computers, air planes, artificial hips, sky scrapers, cities and farm machinery all exist because of engineering design. Our profession has caused profound change and each change has had both positive and negative impacts. On balance, in my view, the changes have been positive – others may disagree.
Because the application of our capabilities allows the changes to occur, we must accept both the credit and the blame. Next time you find yourself pushed toward an “expedient” solution, think about the disappearance of the small towns of western Canada. We do have a responsibility.
Not all engineering educators go to university and have numerous degrees.