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Sustainable agriculture must be based on a mutual understanding between farmers and non-farmers. Farmers have an obligation to provide safe basic foods and to steward the soil, water, and air. Non-farmers, in return, must support farmers through fair prices and programs which protect farmers from loss of income and unreasonable eviction from their farms.
The governments of Canada have surrendered much control over agriculture to transnational corporations. Current government policy, in effect if not intent, is often no more than the promotion of these corporations' agendas. Unfortunately, the agendas of corporate chemical, fertilizer, processing, distribution, and retailing corporation’s conflict with the best interests of farmers, farm families, rural communities, as well as with those of consumers.
Farmers, farm families, local communities and regions must regain control of food production. The National Farmers Union's Policy on Sustainable Agriculture and Food Supply will help them do so. It is a document of hope and optimism for the future.
1. Economic Considerations
-Diversification helps farmers manage risks and, thus, must be encouraged.
-Government should inform farmers of the benefits of land and machinery co-ops.
-Young farm families should be allowed co-operative ownership of public lands.
-The government could encourage co-operative ownership by allowing favorable depreciation on co-operatively-owned machinery.
-Farmland must be protected from uses other than agriculture. Farmers must be protected from economic losses resulting from the preservation of farmland.
-Farmers and all citizens would benefit from forest belts, shelter belts, and uncultivated areas. To promote these practices, these areas should be taxed at a substantially reduced rate.
-Erosion-prone soils should not be cultivated. Such soils could be used as woodlots, forage, or pasture.
-More energy-efficient farming methods, food processing techniques, and transportation systems will increase farmers' profits and reduce environmental damage. For example, trains are 3 times more fuel-efficient than trucks.
-All forms of life and components of life must remain in the public domain. The current raw material of genetic engineering-seeds and domestic animals--have been cultivated, bred, and improved by farmers for millennia. Changing a few lines in a book, to "make it better," does not confer copyright. Nor should altering one or two genes confer ownership of a life-form.
-Products derived, directly or indirectly, through gene manipulation, must be labeled.
-Increasing the connections between consumers and producers will increase awareness of food production, nutrition, health, the environment and how they are all interconnected.
-Organic agriculture and food systems produce safe and wholesome food and, thus, prevent diseases and reduce health care costs.
-Once national standards are established, governments should make it illegal to use the word "organic" to describe food unless that food is grown in accordance with those standards.
-Continually reducing farmers' returns will limit farmers' options and will drive agriculture away from sustainability.
-As much as possible, food processing and consumption should be local or regional. It is in everyone's interest to localize food production and decrease transportation distances.
-Land should be held and owned in ways that promote the maximum number of active farmers. Provisions should be made for land-banks, co-operatives, and land-trusts.
-Research should focus on agricultural methods and technologies which promote smaller farm size with a higher degree of production efficiency.
-Livestock operation must be limited in size to protect the environment and to assure that livestock remains an accessible and profitable diversification alternative for farmers.
-Women must have a greater voice and role in all levels of the food system.
-Trade should increase the happiness, security, and wealth of individuals and protect the environment. Because the current rush toward "free trade" does not, "free trade" should be replaced by a new model which promotes these goals.
-All government research money should go toward alternative, sustainable, organic, or chemical-alternative agriculture.
Chemical agriculture research is already well-funded by large transnational chemical and fertilizer companies.
-Teachers and researchers must accept alternative farming methods as equal in importance to main-stream methods. This will help increase awareness of alternative, sustainable, or organic, agriculture and give farmers more options.
-Teachers and students should focus on the practical rather than theoretical aspects of agriculture.
Source: Canadian National Farmers Union