In spite of some positive steps, the 2025 federal budget signaled some disconnect between the agriculture sector and policymakers said panelists at a Nov. 12 webinar from the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute.
“Regardless of how we are portrayed as a strategic sector or recognized, I think this budget makes clear that we’re competing with every other sector in the Canadian economy for attention,” said Scott Ross, executive director of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
Ross said he appreciated seeing agriculture recognized as a strategic economic driver in the budget, but that recognition may not go too far beyond the language.
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The sector should be demanding more than just recognition said Tyler McCann, managing director the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute.
“We often want some acknowledgement of the sector as a strategic asset for this for the country,” he said. “It’s not enough just to ask for that acknowledgement. We need to ask for more than that.”
“I would say … the government has acknowledged that agri food’s a strategic sector. But again, that’s a very, very small step. It’s this big question around what comes next.”
McCann said the budget was largely positive for the sector, though not the generational change Prime Minister Mark Carney and Finance Minister Francois-Phillippe Champagne initially promised.
Shortfalls
Food and Beverage Canada (FBC) CEO Kristina Farrell said the budget showeda “helpful signals on productivity and trade, but missing supports specifically for food and beverage manufacturing,” but said it lacked promises on issues like labour and a previously promised domestic processing fund.
Farell said there is often a lack of governmental recognition for food and beverage processors.
“We’re actually the country’s largest manufacturing sector and largest manufacturing employer, but you won’t see us getting the same attention as auto or any of the other manufacturing sectors,” she said.
This can lead to conflicting goals between the sector and government departments.
“Our definition of innovation is not the same as the government’s definition of innovation,” Farrell said.
Ross called the budget a “mixed bag” which lacked sufficient promises of red tape reduction.
Disconnects
One of the main focuses of the new budget was trade diversification. Canada continues to face disputes with the U.S. and China.
Ross said one of the problems with communication in agriculture, including as it pertains to trade, is that can be difficult to speak as a unified sector.
“It really does just fall down on clarity of intention and purpose and finding opportunities where they exist,” Ross said.
“It’s a challenging conversation,” he added. “There’s not an easy solution to that, but at the end of the day, this is an area where I don’t think as a sector you can speak as a whole. This is really going to come down to the exact value chain and where they see opportunities.”
McCann there is often a disconnect between producers, processors and policymakers.
“It’s easy in the food manufacturing context, in the agribusiness context, to talk about, how do we encourage more investment,” he said. “If you look at it in the traditional ag space, that is a bit of a different frame.”
Regional differences in agriculture can also widen these gaps.
Farrell said the sector must remember the U.S. will likely always be Canada’s biggest trading partner. McCann echoed the though, saying he remains skeptical of diversification away from the U.S.
“It’s one thing for the Prime Minister to set a target to double exports beyond the United States, but up until the point that (The Canada-U.S. Mexico Agreement) gets ripped up and we lose the preferential market access, I think we need to be realistic that that it will continue to be the most valuable, most reliable, most secure market for most Canadian Food and Agriculture exports,” McCann said.
He said Canada is more concentrated in the U.S. than any time before.
