The General Manager of Manitoba Pork is calling on governments to adopt an incentive rather than regulatory based approach to achieving environmental targets and sustainability goals.
In the wake of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s just completed consultations on a new sustainable agricultural strategy an article being circulated through Manitoba community newspapers and through Manitoba Pork’s Chop Talk newsletter looks at the issue of sustainability.
Cam Dahl, the General Manager of Manitoba Pork, suggests we really are at a crossroads in terms of government policy, especially when it comes to the whole question of sustainability and environmental impact.
We have a choice from a policy perspective. Are we going to try to force the results that government want through regulations and beating farmers with a stick or are we going to find ways of ensuring that farmers are partners on this journey and using incentives to achieve results that meet those environmental goals but also help enhance the fiscal sustainability of producers.
Now is the time really to emphasis the importance of working with farmers and not trying to force them with that big regulatory stick that government carries. Governments can come out and look for ways of providing incentives to producers or mitigating the risk of early adoption of new technology.
It always comes with a risk and, if we want farmers as a society to take on those new approaches and new technologies in order to have a positive environmental impact, we should be offsetting those risks as opposed to saying “you know what, you’re going to reduce your fertilizer use by 30 percent or other big stick regulatory approaches.
Now is the time to get this policy direction right and go down that incentive path rather than regulatory mandates.
~ Cam Dahl, Manitoba Pork
Dahl suggests which path is chosen will show how seriously governments take advancing social, economic and environmental sustainability.
