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Agri-food policy analysis
A hub for George Morris Centre writing on Canadian agri-food policy: supply management, trade, risk management programs, regulation and the frameworks behind them.
Agri-food policy in Canada is shared between Ottawa and the provinces, negotiated with trading partners and argued over by farm groups, processors, retailers and consumers. The pieces gathered here try to explain each policy question from the ground up: what the rule or program is for, how it works in practice, who gains and who pays, and what the alternatives would look like.
Start with the longer papers below, then follow the recent analysis on dairy and supply management, trade and markets and the policy notebook.
Papers on this subject
- The economics of Ontario's craft cider makersA small cidery is an orchard, a factory and a shop at once. How apples, licensing, taxes and retail channels shape the money behind a bottle of Ontario cider.
- Reforming dairy supply management in Canada: the options on the tableQuota exchanges, pricing formulas, tariff cuts and buyouts: a plain guide to the reform options for Canadian dairy, and what Australia and the EU chose.
- Ractopamine, Russia and the pork trade: how a feed additive becomes a trade barrierRactopamine makes pigs leaner on less feed. Why some countries ban its residues, what Codex decided in 2012 and what a ractopamine-free supply chain costs.
- Pressures on Canada's supply-managed dairy sectorSurplus skim milk, protein imports, shrinking milk glasses, trade talks and fewer, larger farms: six forces pushing on Canada's managed dairy system.
- Why Canadian farms keep getting largerSeventy years of census data show fewer, bigger, more capital-heavy farms in Canada. Here is what drives the trend and what it means for rural towns.
- A short history of farm business risk management programs in CanadaFrom crop insurance in 1959 to NISA, CAIS, the Growing Forward suite and Ontario's own program: how Canada's farm safety nets evolved and the design questions.
- Ethanol policy and the livestock feed billFuel mandates turn corn and wheat into ethanol, so livestock feeders bid against the plants for grain. How the cost passes through, and what DDGS returns.
- The milk supply management debate in Canada, explainedProduction quota, import tariffs and cost-based pricing: how Canada's milk system works, what each side argues, and a worked example of why quota costs so much.
- Species at risk on farmland: incentives, costs and alternativesWhen rare species live on private farmland, the rules meant to protect them can backfire. How habitat law shapes landowner incentives, and what works better.
- New farmers and alternative markets inside supply managementWhy quota cost keeps newcomers out of dairy, eggs and poultry, how small-flock limits and new entrant programs work, and where niche markets fit in Canada.
- Boxed beef explained: cutout values and wholesale beef marketsHow a beef carcass becomes boxed cuts, what the cutout value measures, how it links to cattle prices and packer margins and what BSE did to the Canadian market.
- Measuring productivity in Canadian agri-food against other industriesLabour productivity, multifactor productivity and why farms and food plants score so differently: a plain guide to the measures, with a worked index example.
- What decides where Canada raises and processes hogsFeed grain, freight, packing plants, manure rules, labour and export markets all pull hog production in different directions. How the pieces fit in Canada.
Recent analysis
When a market closes: what canola trade disputes teach about market access
· Duncan Strathearn
Twice in seven years China shut much of its door to Canadian canola. The record of those disputes shows how market access is lost, regained and paid for.
Read the analysis ›What drives farmland values in Canada, and why rent tells a different story
· Reid Gauthier
Canadian farmland has risen in value for decades. How Farm Credit Canada measures it, what pushes prices up, and why rents and returns lag behind land prices.
Read the analysis ›Temporary foreign workers on Canadian farms: how the programs work
· Colette Ranville
From the 1966 Jamaica agreement to today's Agricultural Stream: how farms hire seasonal workers from abroad, the rules on wages and housing, and the criticisms.
Read the analysis ›What CUSMA changed for Canada's supply-managed farms
· Duncan Strathearn
New US quotas for milk, chicken, eggs and turkey, the end of milk Class 7, caps on powder exports and two dispute panels: what CUSMA did to supply management.
Read the analysis ›Interprovincial trade barriers in food: why a cheese can be foreign at a provincial border
· Duncan Strathearn
Canada has an internal free trade deal, yet meat, milk and wine still stop at provincial lines. How the rules work, what they cost, and why they persist.
Read the analysis ›How cattle and hogs get priced in Canada
· Reid Gauthier
Canadian cattle and hog prices start in Chicago and are converted, adjusted and graded on the way north. How cash trade, basis, auctions and formulas fit together.
Read the analysis ›