NFU Proposed Canadian Farm Resilience Agency

Nine NFU members and officials are holding meetings with individual MPs to help advance the NFU’s proposed Canadian Farm Resilience Agency (CFRA).  The NFU is pointing out to MPs that there is a large capacity gap at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), as evidenced by the program delivery decisions around the On-Farm Climate Action Fund (OFCAF) program.  Rather than design and deliver OFCAF programs itself, AAFC contracted out the work to twelve third-party organizations including Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association, Manitoba Association of Watersheds, and the Canola Council of Canada.  AAFC currently has a capacity deficit.  More important, the NFU has pointed out that as the years pass and we move closer to our 2030 and 2050 emission-reduction commitments the challenges of reducing emissions will only grow.  “AAFC is at the beginning of decades of intensifying and expanding work and needs to build significant capacity,” is the message the NFU is bringing to policymakers.  To build that capacity, the NFU is proposing a CFRA.  Taking lessons from the much-respected PFRA, but updated for the 21^st century, a CFRA could lead climate adaptation and emissions reduction, hire and train hundreds of independent agrologists, and create a network of demonstration farms where low-emission practices could be refined and showcased.

Read Canada needs climate change agency.