We need a National Agricultural and Food Policy which:
Improves Food Safety
- Amending the Canadian Food Inspection Agency mandate to remove any obligation to promote Canadian agri-business, ensuring the focus is on food safety and food safety only, with enhanced resources for inspection and monitoring.
- Ensuring the quality and wholesomeness of food by strengthening the monitoring of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, growth hormones, non-therapeutic antibiotics and insecticides in food production, processing and storage, with the goal of an orderly reduction in detectable residues of these substances until they reach undetectable limits.
- Establishing federally funded, community-guided school lunch programs across Canada to ensure that our children have daily access to healthy local food and can learn about sustainable food production and healthy eating.
- Strengthening Plant Protection and Health of Animals Programs with measures to ensure the integrity of farm food products.
- Improving and strengthening the Canadian Organic Standard.
- Providing transitional assistance for those switching to certified organic farming practices.
- Ensuring that no animal by-products are used in ruminant animal feed.
- Introducing testing for BSE.
Provides Food Security
- Moving towards regional food self-sufficiency across Canada, as we begin the shift to organic agriculture as the dominant model of production.
- Supporting the “200 kilometer diet” and locally grown food through expansion of farmers’ markets and local culinary tourism activities.
- Promoting roof top gardens, cultivation of green urban space for agriculture, food production in cities and suburbs, and community gardens.
- Protecting the right of farmers to save their own seed.
- Promoting heritage seed banks and seed exchange programs.
Prevents Corporate Control of the Food Supply
- Reforming agriculture regulations to challenge corporate concentration.
- Ensuring that farm support payments are farm-based (not production-based) to encourage more farms and more farmers.
- Encouraging organic farming methods to improve farm profitability and sustainability.
Learn More: https://elizabethmaymp.ca/vision-green/p1.15