NDP Has Plan For Canadian Food Strategy

Sep 13, 2021

The NDP has released its agriculture platform ahead of the September 20th federal election.

Margaret Smith is a candidate in the riding of Selkirk-Interlake-Eastman

"We would be supporting sustainable agriculture which helps people to cope with things like drought and grasshoppers. We're making sure that we're working with the agricultural sector so that we help them to access low carbon tools and technology and to adapt better to sustainable kinds of practices in farming, so that they can adapt to these climate induced weather changes and other aspects of climate change crises."

The NDP election platform also lists the following priorities in relation to agriculture:

- New Democrats have a plan for a Canadian Food Strategy that will take a whole-of-government approach to address regional needs and priorities by investing in agricultural communities, supporting young and new farmers and taking steps to ensure that rural livelihoods are good and sustainable.

- New Democrats are committed to fully protecting supply management and ensuring reciprocity in all trade negotiations, and supporting our supply managed sectors as they innovate and grow.

- New Democrats will make sure that high-speed broadband and cell phone infrastructure is available to connect our farmers and rural communities to the services and tools they need, no matter where in the country they are.

- New Democrats will introduce a payment protection program for produce growers and take immediate steps to restore protection for growers selling to the United States under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act.

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

We're a 6th generation family farm in southeast Iowa showing the real ups and downs of pig farming and row crop farming. No script, just the work. Subscribe and follow along.

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