Thank you for the invitation.

Just Food has been the regional backbone organization in the Ottawa region, working on both food and farming issues for almost 22 years now, including supporting new entrants. When I speak of “regional” today, I am referring to the sub-provincial and sub-territorial regional level.

We've identified five groups of new entrants. The main focus of this committee so far has been the intrafamily transfer, or what is most commonly referred to as “succession”.

We strongly echo the requests and recommendations made by our colleagues to better support transition across families. However, today I draw your attention to the remaining four groups of new farm entrants. Each category comes with different compounded challenges.

I will provide a more detailed written submission and invite further exploration across the networks working on these issues nationally, or coast to coast to coast, including the Food Communities Network and the Common Ground Network.

First, in acknowledgement of the dual governance on these lands, we must centre indigenous entrants into food harvesting, fishing and agriculture businesses. We must note that there are remaining outstanding land and treaty issues related to land access, in addition to environmental concerns on lands and waters that are a priority to be addressed in order that these new entrants can successfully run their businesses.

Second is rural and urban young people who do not have a farm in their family.

Then we have second-careerists, often identified as being under 30 and sometimes under 40, who also do not have a farm in their family.

The fourth are new Canadians, with a majority of those interested bringing substantial agriculture experience, but they have a need for support to transition into a new climate, soil conditions, markets, food preferences and sometimes languages. Temporary foreign workers on farms who are seeking a pathway to citizenship are also included in this last category.

Given that, there are five things the federal government can immediately take action on that would make a sincere difference.

First is protecting food lands. Financial inability to purchase land is the single most pressing problem for most of the new entrant categories. Unregulated investment into farm land, both domestic and foreign, has helped drive prices well beyond what farming can support as a business. Retiring farmers without in-family successors have naturally been inclined to sell to the highest bidder.

In today's world, we run the real risk that farmers become tenants of wealthy, non-farming landowners with no opportunity to participate in equity growth and no ability to raise funds with land as a collateral for capitalizing their businesses. We request that tax and investment rules become uniform across the country.

Second, many of the financial mechanisms that are being asked to support intrafamily transfers need to be equally extended to third party transfers for genuine new farm entrants, given the high percentage of family farms today with no successor.

Third, we need legal structures to support what is being innovated and what is working for new entrants on the ground. One strong example comes from the network of community farms being established coast to coast to coast. Just Food established a 150-acre community farm within the national capital region 12 years ago as one such model of non-profit management of shared land and shared equipment to support both independent, for-profit farm business start-ups and non-profit food production for community food security.

Recent years have seen the growth of diverse models, including community farms, co-operatives, farm condominiums, grazing commons, family farmers who want to donate their farm to support new entrants through community land trusts, and community economic development investment funds. We need to expand the legal and business models on both sides of this relationship for successful transfers.

Fourth, we need federal support for regional, local markets. There has been disproportionate government investment in support of large operations and export commodities that isn't balanced yet with production for local markets coming from small and medium-sized farms, which are of majority interest to the new entrants across the four categories that I'm talking about today. For example, the CFIA's definition of “local” is an example of federal policy that has hindered rather than served to support regionally focused businesses.

Viable farm businesses are needed for viable intergenerational transfer of farmland. Overall, federal-provincial agreements need to prioritize financial support for both new entrants and the organizations that are providing the on-the-ground, regionally adapted resources, education and business tools needed for this massive intergenerational land transfer that's under way to support today's diversity of new entrants.

Thanks so much.

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