The Rural Voice, 1999-11, Page 32Panel has mixed
view of the future
The consumer will drive the market
for food in the coming years. That
was about the one thing six top
Ontario farm leaders could agree on
when the took part in a panel
"Charting a Course for Agriculture"
in Brussels, October 7.
The six were brought together at
the annual meeting of the Huron
County Federation of Agriculture.
Included were John Core, president
of Ontario Dairy Farmers; Anna
Bragg, president
of the Ontario
Corn Producers'
Association; Ed
Segsworth,
president of the
Ontario Federation
of Agriculture;
Will Nap,
president of
Ontario Pork
Producers; John
Maaskant, district
2 director and
former president
Chicken Producers and Stan Eby
from the Ontario Cattlemen's
Association.
Nap said the market for food will
be driven by the concerns of aging
baby boomers who want healthy
foods to prolong their lives. Concerns
over genetically modified foods will
change to support when there are
products that will benefit the
consumer, not just producers, he
predicted.
Consumers continue to worry about
the use of antibiotics in animals feeds
because they see it leading to
antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Even
though consumers themselves are
also to blame for overuse of
antimicrobials in, for instance,
household cleaners, "We're going to
lose that argument," Nap said.,
"We're going to have to alter our
production methods."
Consumers want to know more
about the history of the food they
buy, Nap said. "Producers want story
pork."
The internet will allow them to
trace back their food right to the
News
farm. Already one such system has
been set up in France where people
can enter information from the food
label on their computer and get
information about the farm where
their beef was produced and the
farm's production methods.
Core told of hearing a futurist who
predicted that by 2020 each
refrigerator would have a scanner on
its door that would record the food
removed and automatically order
more. The refrigerator will have a
door inside the house and a door
outside where food can be delivered,
the futurist said.
will move west. Ontario's cost of
production for pork is close to that of
western Canada and below farms in
the midwestern U.S., he claimed.
Ontario has a big edge over western
Canada through its producers with a
long history of efficient hog
production and an infrastructure
already in place.
Asked if he believed if there would
be more free trade in agricultural
products, Maaskant shot back,
"Whose definition of free trade —
ours or the Americans?".
Maaskant said farmers need both
strong commodity organizations and
a strong general farm
organization with
World Trade
Organization talks
about to begin.
The push for more
vertical integration
of food production
will continue, he
said. "Canada is the
only country where,
thanks to supply
management, poultry
farms have stayed
independent and profitable," he said.
Overproduction and dependence on
exports will accelerate vertical
integration, Maaskant warned.
"Vulnerable farmers are likely to see
contracting as a solution." As well,
he said, farmers are more and more
dependent on large companies for
seed, feed and breeding stock.
"They don't want to own you,"
Maaskant said of the big integrated
companies. "(The farm's) the sector
of the food chain that has the highest
investment costs."
Core said the future of the dairy
industry is totally dependent on trade
negotiations. He cited figures from
researcher Brian Doidge that showed
American farmers get three times as
much government support as
Canadian farmers to show that
farmers could not compete with their
U.S. counterparts without protection.
"The future of agriculture depends
on our farmers and producers having
influence with government," he said.
Eby said Ontario's small beef herd
size helps it react more quickly to
market trends than areas with larger
operations. Ontario's competitive
A panel of top agricultural leaders participated in a panel discussion at the
annual meeting of the Huron County Federation of Agriculture. Giving their
views were (left to right) John Core, Anna Bragg, Ed Segsworth, Will Nap, Stan
Eby, and John Maaskant.
of the Ontario
28 THE RURAL VOICE
"Think of the change that means
for our food products," Core said.
Consumers are concerned about
three thingsi with food, the futurist
said. They are concerned about how
the food affects their health; how
production of the food affects the
environment and the use oc genetic
manipulation in food. Consumers
polled were not worried so much
about genetic engineering in
pharmaceuticals but they were
worried about its use in food
production, he said.
Segsworth envisioned more north -
south rather than east -west trade.
Hog and beef production would
switch more and more to western
Canada to take advantage of cheap
feed, he said with product flowing
south to U.S. markets. Ontario's
needs will be filled with pork and
beef from the midwestern U.S.
Ontario and Quebec will supply
chicken and milk to the whole
northeastern part of the U.S.,
Segsworth predicted.
While agreeing there would be
truly free trade with the U.S., Nap
disagreed with the prediction pork
i