When farmers look at what’s going on around the world in just about every business, they are justified to be pleased with their chosen vocation. With banks collapsing and governments scrambling to prop them up, farmers have an unusual feeling of personal security –there’s always a job to do and food for the family.

It’s a feeling farmers rarely experience. Most of the time we are the ones concerned with the future of our industry – world prices have fallen to new low levels and we’re forced to sell our products well below the cost of production.

Not so today!

While we are seeing volatility, generally, shortages of food in many parts of the world have resulted in prices at a level not seen in recent memory. In today’s marketplace for most commodities, we are able to sell our products, pay our bills and have money left to put back into improvements on our farms –an ideal situation we would like to see continue well into the future.

Agriculture’s expanded horizons are also adding to the capabilities of farmers and their families. Now that we have entered the world of energy production, our sense of worth in the world has dramatically improved –not because oil prices have declined to today’s levels, but because farmers are now able to reduce their production costs by producing their own energy supplies.

The world’s economy is in an extremely volatile state, something farmers are all too familiar with. We are therefore comforted when we look in the milk tank or the grain bin on the combine and see the results of our work and know there is strong demand for the food we produce.

Farmers and their organizations have a strong track record of researching and providing workable solutions to agriculture’s problems. Getting governments to accept and implement our solutions is sometimes a stumbling block. Candidates in the recent federal election were presented with a wealth of solutions to agriculture’s issues.

In the area of food safety issues, we are urging our government to ensure adequate funding is available to implement the Canadian on-farm food safety program. This will ensure appropriate food safety measures are in place at the processing, packing, and retail levels.

We have called on government to develop policies on carbon tax and domestic carbon trading systems, and incentives for renewable energy developments. Improvements to Canada’s food labelling regulations have been identified to benefit both producers and consumers.

This is definitely a good time to be a farmer. We have the resources to meet the needs of society in terms of food and energy, and we are willing to work with governments to find solutions.