OP-ED – Let’s ditch the silos: towards an integrated agri-food policy framework
In this opinion piece, originally published in the Hill Times on March 27, 2019, Dr. Don Buckingham, CAPI’s President and CEO talks about how the Canadian government has identified the agriculture and agri-food sector as an engine of growth, with some pretty ambitious targets over the next decade as noted in the 2017 federal government’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth report (Barton Report) and the subsequent 2018 Agri-Food Table report. Dr. Buckingham also explains that “…policy heavy-lifting can no longer be done in isolated government departments or industry-specific silos. We must work together for the development and roll-out of an integrated agri-food policy. Instead of defining joint mandates for various adjacent ministries alone, Canada should look to create a trans-disciplinary knowledge network, including scientists, policy researchers, individual producers, and processors across various regions”