“Farmers are professional complainers,” Pierre Elliott Trudeau told Quebec agriculture students in 1979. “When there is too much sun, they complain. When there is too much rain, they complain. A farmer is a complainer.”
Historians say Trudeau’s complaint helped the Liberal party
lose the election that year. Either way, the relationship between politicians and farm organizations since then has gotten a lot more sophisticated, a lot more expensive and a lot more complex, with a barrage of conferences and studies, back-room meetings, media campaigns and even Twitters and Tweets.
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But is it any more successful?
Ron Bonnett, president of Canadian Federation of Agriculture and Catherine Swift, president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business tell us the roles and results of their respective organizations.
To say the two groups are different doesn’t begin to describe it.[
As a 58-year-old cow-calf farmer near Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., Ron Bonnett knows what it means to farm in tumultuous times. Environmental and animal rights concerns have grabbed the spotlight, and regulations that Bonnett couldn’t have dreamed of when he started his career are now the norm in his sector. As if that weren’t enough, trade disputes have ground up the beef industry too, and rapid consolidation has hacked the number of beef farms.
In June, Bonnett stepped up to the presidency of Canada’s largest national farmer lobby group, th
CFA. Even after surviving the turbulence in the beef sector, it felt like jumping into the fire.
Lobbying is CFA’s core function, but it has to start with knowing what you’re lobbying to achieve. It turns out, that’s a challenge in itself. “lt’s more than identifying a problem,” Bonnett says. “It’s coming up with options for solutions.”
That’s tricky when your 22 member groups are themselves lobbying on behalf of a variety of sectors and regions. Farmers representing groups like Manitoba’s Keystone Agricultural Producers and the Canadian Horticultural Council bring viewpoints from those sectors and geographies to the CFA table.
While it may not be easy, the process is essential, Bonnett says. CFA staff provide the meat and potatoes — research and background information — and eventually the group hashes out a common position.
It’s a system based on elected representatives, not direct input from individual farmers on specific issues. The CFA relies on its member organizations to represent the needs of their own members. Then discussion takes place at the local, regional and finally national levels.
“It’s good to have a lot of opinions,” Bonnett says. “But if there’s no mechanism of consensus then you really haven’t accomplished anything.” Conversely, everybody needs a solid base of information so individuals can have well-thought-out positions, he says.
Better communication technology has improved local engagement on issues, especially with younger farmers. CFA sends weekly email updates to members with the goal of getting that information to filter through to each group’s farmers. “The mechanisms to get feedback are changing and we need to engage all members’ voices,” says Bonnett.
Today, widespread use of the Internet, social networking and smartphones allows for quick, inexpensive access to the general public. Such tools make it easier to respond to issues immediately, says Bonnett, who describes himself as a crack-berry addict, saying, “BlackBerrys are one of the greatest tools for lobby groups.”
Bonnett sees agriculture becoming more of an issue for the general public. He points to the fact that he was recently asked to be part of a blog panel for the Globe and Mail. It’s an opportunity, but it’s also a challenge. “We need to communicate to the public what it means to have a strong agricultural community in this country,” Bonnett says. “It’s good to have a safe food supply and it’s good for Canada economically and socially.”
Bonnett believes effective farm lobby groups need farmer spokespeople to bring credibility to the message. Also, strong lobby efforts require support staff for research and a network of members with a broad perspective who understand the complexity of the issues. He says too that a national, unified voice is needed to inform federal government during policy development and program consultation.
“In the past, Canada’s agricultural policy and programs by and large have been knee-jerk reactions to one crisis or another,” says Bonnett.
During his two-year term, he’ll push government to create alliances and invest in research so markets can be developed and program delivery problems can be sorted out quickly. One of the challenges he sees is creating programs and regulations to support two parallel markets — one for producers marketing local food and another for groups producing commodities for export.
CFA lobby efforts are long term and directed not only at politicians but at the people writing the rules and creating the policies behind the scenes. “CFA staff work with senior bureaucrats on a day-to-day basis, making sure ideas don’t get killed before they even get off the ground,” says Bonnett.
Currently, the CFA is facilitating the creation of a National Food Strategy by getting feedback from all levels of the food chain, from customers to researchers and processors. “Screwing the person below you is not sustainable in the long run,” says Bonnett. “We should first look at what the consumer wants to buy and then work together to ensure everyone gets a decent return all along the supply chain.”
However, credibility is key to lobbying and to getting high-power players to come to the table.
CFA is non-partisan and has only about 10 per cent of its $1.5-million budget supplied by corporate sponsors. The producer-sponsored groups provide its core funding, based on a formula that balances costs among regions and commodities.
However, of the 18 groups on the board of directors, five represent national supply-managed commodities. The rest are mostly provincial general farm groups, and there are no grain, pulse or oilseed groups from Western Canada except the CWB.
Bonnett is careful to pick the farmer-first side of the two touch-stone issues in Canadian agriculture — supply management and the CWB monopoly. “In my opinion, farmers themselves should decide what tools they want,” he says. “According to the recent elections, the majority still support the CWB. It shouldn’t be the government that decides.”
On one side of the fence, CFA has been trying to create international alliances supporting trade. On the other, it has been pushing for a set emergency response that can be rolled out if trade rules are broken. It is also supporting the tariffs that make supply management possible.
Bonnett isn’t convinced Canadian farmers would benefit from the demise of supply management. Recently, a WTO negotiator told him that Canada would not get additional trade access somewhere else if the country gave up supply management.
Bonnett thinks eventually some kind of global agricultural trade deal will be struck. “Global conditions like climate change, increasing population, increasing oil price and biofuel demand will force a resolution,” he says.
Balancing on the collaborative fence is tricky, especially when your lobby targets are politicians and what you are sitting on is spread out and mostly middle age.
The CFA is sometimes criticized for being too general to be effective but it’s actually a core strength, Bonnett says. “In my opinion, CFA’s greatest accomplishment is being able to pull together views of different geographic regions and different commodities and come up with a common vision.”
Catherine Swift, president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, gets right to the point. “Lobbying is our No. 1 activity,” she says. “We also go to bat for our members on an individualized basis.”
Although CFIB’s members are small to medium-size businesses, the group oozes professionalism and high-profile intelligence and ferocity.
Their $35-million budget is focused on helping small businesses deal with legislation and government red tape. Its 108,000 members (5.2 per cent are agricultural) can also obtain business counselling, information and discounted services.
CFIB is best known for lobby efforts on big issues like promoting free trade and increasing the capital gains exemption from $500,000 to $750,000. They’ll also tackle regulatory problems that individual members face.
Swift, who has contributed to the Globe and Mail and National Post newspapers and been a guest on several news programs, has a reputation as a straight shooter. “Parliament Hill is a small place,” she says. “Personal reputation for sure contributes to credibility.”
On average, CFIB representatives meet with one or two politicians and senior officials a day. “The No. 1 thing you need to have to change anything is political will,” says Swift. “It’s absolutely imperative to meet with politicians.”
CFIB credibility comes from being non-partisan, Swift says, as well as from paid memberships. The CFIB is funded only by members’ fees, $350 to $400 each. All members have the same rights in the organization, no matter the size of the business or political affiliations.
Accountability is also key. “If we don’t perform, they aren’t members anymore,” Swift says bluntly. “I’ve seen too many groups — some of the ag groups — get money thrown at them and suddenly their interests are directed away from the interests of their members.”
Many other lobby groups are funded by governments or by big players with their own agendas, says Swift. She points to when the CFIB was the lone voice opposing the bank mergers. All the other business organizations had employees of banks sitting on their boards.
Soliciting direct feedback from members is the basis of CFIB’s policy and research. The organization’s position is based on member surveys, mostly conducted online. Every member is given one vote on a given issue. If only one sector is involved in the issue, then only those members are surveyed.
Continually, CFIB surveys its members in person and online and then compiles the results, all meeting the ISO standard for market research. “We have a very sophisticated in-house system to electronically survey our members,” says Swift. “We can do a survey and get 10,000 responses in a few days.”
CFIB’s range of issues and members is vast, so the board sets their priorities based on the results of an annual member survey. Sales staff in all the provinces personally visit and ask for priorities from members, on average about 4,500 businesses per week. Back in the office, this data is tabulated daily. The result is that Swift can use these statistics to set policy and give teeth to the opinions she presents to politicians. “There’s strength in numbers,” she says.
Additionally, each sector, such as agribusiness, can be asked for a position on a specific topic. For example, CFIB sent the major media outlets a press release stating that the CWB wasn’t meeting their customer needs, based on surveying their farmer-members. When pressed, Swift takes it a step further: “The majority of our members feel that the wheat board can exist, just not as a monopoly.”
Swift says many of the problems they encounter are because of duplication of services and rules from multiple levels of government or antiquated regulations that no longer pertain to the marketplace.
“Agriculture is a hugely respected sector but regulated to the yin-yang,” says Swift. “So many regulations hobble our businesses.”
In response, CFIB tries to ally with the appropriate ag group, issue by issue or for the individual needs of their members. Says Swift, “We want to be the business voice of agriculture.”CG
