2. Policy → NFU Briefs

NFU Briefs

2023

Much of Canadian farmers' success results from over a century of operating within a seed regulatory system that was designed to promote quality crops, prevent serious disease problems, and protect farmers from fraud. While there have been some changes to these regulations over the years, the basic purpose and structure of our seed regulations has remained constant over the entire lifetimes of today’s farmers. Our regulations have served us well, but if big seed corporations have their way, all this will change. The federal government’s Seed Regulatory Modernization process currently underway is a critical crossroads where global corporations seeking to control Canada’s seed for their own benefit are challenging our public interest-based seed regulatory framework. Read more

2022

How agricultural policy drives farmland drainage by Cathy Holtslander, Director of Research and Policy The National Farmers Union is a direct-membership organization made up of Canadian farm families who share Read more

The National Farmers Union (NFU) is uniquely positioned to provide a perspective towards a National Agricultural Labour Strategy that recognizes the common interests of farmers and farm workers and to propose solutions that will increase the economic, social and ecological sustainability of our food and farming system by focusing on improving the conditions and returns to labour. For decades, Canada’s farm numbers have been going down, farm size has been increasing, and more farms have come to rely on hired workers as a consequence. The ongoing loss of farms and the current shortage of farm labour have the same root cause: a cost-price squeeze that results in inadequate returns to the work of farming, whether done by the farm operators or farm workers. Paying high prices for inputs and receiving low prices for commodities results in farmers subsidizing their farms with off-farm jobs, pressure to keep wages to farm workers low, the exit of skilled people from the sector to pursue more remunerative and less precarious sources of income, and a lack of new entrants to replace retiring farmers. Read more

In this consultation, the key point we would like to emphasize is that publicly funded rural inter-community public transit is needed to serve Canada’s rural and remote areas. Rural public transportation options have been eliminated over recent years, just when alternatives to private vehicles as a strategy to combat climate change and prevent rural depopulation is needed most. In most of Canada, rural and remote areas are underserved, with intermittent, expensive and sometimes unsafe transportation options; in many cases no public transportation is available. A safe, reliable, accessible, affordable and climate-friendly national public transportation system can be designed to serve both rural and remote communities and larger centers.  Such a system would provide greater autonomy, dignity and freedom to people including vulnerable women, youth, elderly, people with disabilities and health conditions and people living in poverty whose safety may depend on reliable transportation. Moreover, Canada’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls final report calls for “safe and affordable transit and transportation services… sufficient and readily available.” Read more

On Monday, October 3, 2022, Glenn Wright, NFU farmer, lawyer and engineer presented at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food with regards to Bill C-234: An Act to amend Read more

Policy Categories
Policy Archive