Grassroots Canadian Farm Politics

[malleefarmer]

Farm policy in aust is set up in this way.
Each state has a body called the farmers ferederation ie in South Aust it is called SAFF each state has one which is affiliated to the national farmers federation.
Each state body has a meat/livestock council,grains council,wineg****council
poulrty producers council etc etc you get the picture.

Each state makes resolutions/policy in farming matters on a state govt level and when national decisions are needed each state has a national rep and things get thrashed out at a national level.

The wheat debate in aust is a national debate and saff has chosen policy to deregulate wereas other states are yet to decide.

The barley debate was entirely a state issue.


how is farm policy set over there this may not be the right place for this thread sorry....

[wd9]

Good question. In my view of the scenario, it would seem top down approach where the policy is decided within the party and then brought down to the grassroots. This is true be it the CWB decision as of late, CAIS program, Ag policy framework (which by the way was written about a year a go and many of the meetings simply justify what is already written, not to rewrite it. Renewable fuel is interesting because most "farm policy groups" didn't even know what an RFS was until it was too late and the policy of the parties already existed. Transportation policy is an excellent example also. Even if all the 'grass roots' and the not railroad industry all agree on future policy, still the policy carried forward.

In my view, the grassroots representation is mainly noise to the government as it seems all views, other than supply management, are so polarized, the decision can never be wrong as that is what farmers are saying.

Jaded, perhaps, seen too much, definitely.

[malleefarmer]

to add some more, not every town but there are probably 25 to 30 local saff branches across the state with members putting up local issues and then going to state level for discussion.