Considering the important…

Considering the important role that farmers will play in achieving goals for soil health, I am curious to know how many farmers were included on the working group, attended consultations or contributed their comments. Could that number be made public? If it is low, could there be a concerted effort to consult with farmers in January? (i.e. conference calls, offering per diems for attendance, etc.)

I’m glad to see an emphasis on the sociology of behaviour change in this document and wouldn’t it be innovative, instead of hiring a few outside experts to relay the barriers and motivations of farmers, to have all OMAFRA policy makers better understand farmers and farming? Perhaps there could be some sort of ‘buddy’ program in which OMAFRA employees spend days on-farm and have monthly calls with a farmer to better understand the day-to-day realities of agriculture. This would reciprocally benefit farmers with a better understanding of the Ministry.

Admittedly, I find it difficult to comment on this document because it appears more like an overview of what is currently known and going on in Ontario than a vision of where we need to be and a strategy of how to get there. My concern, therefore, is that this current plan will serve to maintain similar types of funding and programs with similar types of organizations and expect altogether different results this time around. My comment would be, before similar programs roll out, that a rigorous public evaluation of government and third-party delivered programs be completed, in order to understand how to improve on them going forward.

[Original Comment ID: 211616]