I expect most folks missed an announcement that the federal Liberal government gave $287,000 to the National Farmers Union (NFU) to establish, in their words, “a new national program aiming to maximize the long-term success of equity-deserving farmers in Canadian agriculture. This program will centralize information sourced from across organizations and offer support nationally for two successive cohorts of 20 farmers to access training, grants, mentorship, and networking.” The NFU defines equity-deserving farmers “as, but not limited to, Indigenous farmers; Black and other racialized farmers; women farmers; youth farmers; 2SLGBTQI+ farmers, farmers with disabilities; and farmers in Official Language Minority Communities; and all farmworkers in these same groups.”
I admit I was flabbergasted that the aforementioned folks needed this information service, particulary considering the ability of internet searching to uncover information minutia on anything by anybody. Of course, with an extreme far-left organization like the NFU guiding and managing the program, one suspects the information being centralized and disseminated to the selected equity-deserving farmers might be slightly slanted. One suspects information on any group, anyone or anything connected to commercial free-enterprise agriculture will be overlooked by the program’s NFU central managers.
One is perplexed by the implication of offering support to access training in agriculture. Agriculture colleges across the country are begging anyone to attend their institutions. In fact, some, like Fairview College, closed their ag vocational training facilities years ago because of a lack of interested students. Heck, there were assistance programs under EI that paid students to attend. First Nations, to this day, will pay their interested young people to attend ag colleges. These same colleges offer numerous short-term courses involving instruction in ag management, technology, and practical skills like machinery maintenance and welding. A simple internet search of ag colleges would show a cornucopia of ag training and education offerings. I suspect equity-deserving farmers are quite capable of gathering such information for themselves.
So why is the NFU getting involved? Well, what one might suspect is that ag colleges all teach students about commercial, free-enterprise agriculture, which would be repugnant to the core ideology of the extreme left NFU. No doubt, the new NFU-inspired program will be dripping with anti-capitalist inferences. And will propagandize to program attendees the glories of communal, gender-affirming, unionized, non-profit, organic, climate-friendly fossil fuel-free farming.
However, the NFU makes an astute point about accessing grants. Considering they successfully extracted a large sum of money from the feds for this rather dubious, ideologically suspect program, they sure know how to access grants from dumb governments. Over the last ten years, the federal Liberal government has created hundreds of grants, contests, research opportunities, labour support and, of course, diversity and equity justice schemes – almost all are related to saving the planet from the ravages of climate change. As long as the application has some connection to climate change and diversity, success is almost assured—the NFU program grant proves that point.
To be fair, the NFU isn’t the only entity taking advantage of the federal diversity grant bonanza – the Ontario government scored a $1.5 million grant to help diverse folks get into food processing start-ups.
However, everyone in the ag industry should take note. There is every danger that many hundreds of federal Liberal government vague giveaway grants and schemes will be eliminated by a new, fiscally responsible Conservative government. So get in on the grant gravy train right away. If it’s an extensive grant application, consultants have sprung up who will create a politically-correct document with all the latest climate change, diversity and equity buzzwords.
Meanwhile, the NFU, true to form, has taken several deluded positions that are supposed to help agriculture in Canada thrive. So far, they support the national postal strike, support railway and port strikes, and as a left-wing political entity, they support the Palestinian struggle against Israel. Naturally, they continue to vehemently oppose all free trade agreements, particularly CUSMA which is so critical to Canadian ag exports.
To further their cause as Canada’s official representative to the international peasant movement, the NFU, on behalf of Canadian peasants, denounces neoliberalism and militarism – well, good for them. They are also working hard to get the Canadian government to pass legislation to adopt UNDROP. That would be the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other People Working in Rural Areas. A federal victim grant to Canadian peasants would probably help their cause. You couldn’t make this up.
Will Verboven is an ag opinion writer.
