The Rural Voice, 2006-10, Page 11I.ong.Trrm Thinking
for Today's Issues
Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario
7660 Mill Rd., RR 4 Guelph, ON N1H 611
Voice: (519) 837-1620 Fax: (519) 824-1835
Email: cffomail@christianfarmers.org
Web: www.christianfarmers.org
Building Plans from our Visions
Over four years ago, the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario started making serious
work regarding the development of a new vision for farming. At that time, our organization
believed a deliberate push needed to be made to carve out a new way of looking at
farming and how to best make it thrive.
As an organization, we're still promoting and pushing the need for a new vision for farming.
We believe it is critical that farmers in Ontario have .a clear picture of how to build upon
past success and create a strong future for their farms and rural communities. But even
though that's still an important task to accomplish, we're starting to talk about moving from
visions towards actual plans.
The CFFO has said that moderate -scale family farms need to be the cornerstone of all
federal, provincial and municipal programs and policies. We've also said that government
programs need to continue to have appropriate targeting, and that continued efforts need
to be made to help farming communities during times of economic or personal hardship.
Finally, we've said that governments need to be committed to food security at home and
abroad and that farmers themselves need to make responsible choices regarding how their
actions affect their neighbours.
All of those visionary principles continue to be good things. But the time is fast approaching
when we need to start talking about adding definitive action plans and targets to those
principles. We need to start thinking about the development of a comprehensive plan for
Ontario that creates clearly-defined targets and spells out the specific responsibilities of
government, the agri-food industry and farmers themselves.
In Ontario, we have abundant resources, nearby markets and innovative people to create
greater prosperity from our farms and industries. But we need to agree to the development
of specific targets and plans, and clearly identify who is responsible for what duties to make
it all fly. Let's move beyond visions and start discussing how to draft plans that deliver on
the goals and dreams we collectively have for our industry.
For a copy of the CFFO Vision for Farming: Closer to the Heart, visit
www.christianfarmers.org
OCTOBER 2006 7