Policy Priorities

CFA’s policy priorities will help to build resilience and unlock the economic potential of Canada’s agriculture sector, helping farmers across Canada.

CFA’s Policy Priorities

The Next Policy Framework (NPF) The NPF is a 5-year (2028–2033) federal, provincial and territorial investment aimed at strengthening and growing Canada's agriculture and agri-food sector. CFA is developing recommendations and building national industry alignment on core elements to guide the framework’s development.

CFA Joint NPF Submission to Government Consultation

On May 29, CFA submitted its response to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s consultation on the Next Policy Framework (NPF).

The submission is a joint industry submission, developed with 26 national agriculture associations representing a broad cross-section of the value chain (Logos can be found below).

This submission calls for a more modern, coordinated policy framework that strengthens Canada’s long-term competitiveness and resilience in a rapidly changing global environment. See industry’s vision for the Next Policy Framework input here.

Priorities

The Next Policy Framework should advance the following interconnected priorities:
Growth & Competitiveness – raising productivity, streamlining regulation, supporting trade and market diversification, and expanding domestic production, including value-added goods.
Research & Innovation – ensuring innovation programming supports the full continuum from research to adoption and advances solutions aligned with industry priorities.
Resilience & Market Diversification – strengthening the sector’s capacity to anticipate, prevent, and manage risks through increased flexibility, market diversification, and reduced reliance on ad hoc or reactive responses to shocks.
Accountability & Impact – improving outcomes by focusing on results rather than activities, enhancing how data is collected, standardized, shared, and used, and delivering programs in more streamlined, client-centric ways.

Recommendation 1 - Increased flexibility and responsiveness in risk management programming

Increase responsiveness and equity in Business Risk Management (BRM) programming to strengthen core programs and disaster frameworks, while enabling alternative service delivery, including through the private sector. A strengthened and responsive BRM suite is essential to enhancing farm-level resilience, and access to these programs should not be conditional upon compliance with environmental performance requirements.
Key actions include:
Maintaining core BRM programming and improving responsiveness, including enhancements to AgriStability coverage and compensation rates, increasing caps, and improving the effectiveness and timeliness of support.
Addressing gaps in existing insurance programming, including forage insurance, national livestock price insurance, and coverage for year-round and controlled environment agriculture.
Introducing greater flexibility in program design and delivery, including enhanced regional flexibility, by expanding the existing suite through additional private, public, and partnership-based tools.
Ensuring risk management programming is calibrated to emerging risks through a more responsive and predictable disaster framework that accommodates geopolitical disruptions and disease events, while supporting both disaster response and proactive resilience-building measures that reduce long-term risk exposure.

Recommendation 2 - A sector development approach to growth

Support sector competitiveness and resilience by focusing investment on high-impact areas and strengthening linkages with policy tools and programs across the Government of Canada, not solely within Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Key actions include:
Ensuring funding levels are sufficient to meaningfully advance shared priorities related to growth, competitiveness, and food security.
Focusing federal-only investments across four priority areas: research and innovation; value-added production and processing; market maintenance, development, diversification, and quality assurance; and sector resilience and sustainability for future generations, including risk management extension, emergency planning, industry capacity building, and support for innovation and environmental best management practices.
Ensuring all sectors of agriculture are eligible for Strategic Initiatives programming, including non-food agriculture and aquaculture.
Ensuring AgriMarketing supports both market diversification and market maintenance, while addressing non-tariff barriers and enabling timely responses to emerging trade opportunities and disruptions.
Ensuring industry priorities drive research and innovation programming through further investment and reduced prescriptive spending requirements.
Supplementing NPF funding by establishing dedicated agriculture streams and targeting agri-food outcomes across key federal departments and initiatives, including infrastructure programming, value-added processing (e.g., biofuels), tax policy, labour supports, and regulatory modernization through enhanced cross-government coordination.

Recommendation 3 - Simplified administration and increased efficiency

Streamline federal strategic initiatives program administration through a single portal and shift toward outcomes-based performance measurement that prioritizes productivity, resilience, and competitiveness over administrative activity metrics.
Key actions include:
Supporting outcomes-based performance measurement through clearly established targets developed collaboratively with industry and focused on measurable results rather than prescriptive activities or internal program metrics.
Enhancing data sharing and transparency by improving how program data is collected, standardized, shared across governments and industry, and made accessible to the public.
Improving administrative efficiency by developing a single portal for all federal only strategic initiatives programs and undertaking a review of those programs to identify cost savings, reduce administrative burden, and secure efficiencies through alternative service delivery models.

Expected Outcomes

Under this direction, the Next Policy Framework will be better positioned to support:
Improved sector-wide resilience and risk management capacity.
Increased productivity and innovation adoption across the sector.
Stronger global competitiveness and expanded market opportunities.
More efficient and effective use of public investments.
Reduced reliance on reactive, ad hoc disaster response measures.
Greater coherence and alignment across agricultural policy and broader government levers.
Canadian agriculture is not facing a single disruption, but a sustained shift in operating conditions. The Next Policy Framework represents an opportunity to modernize core policy tools so they reflect today’s realities and position the sector for long-term resilience, growth, and competitiveness through 2033 and beyond.
Trade and Domestic Food SecurityAs the global trade landscape changes, diversifying domestic and export markets, supporting Canadian production and increasing domestic processing capacity are all critical to support the health of Canadian agriculture.

Permanently Increase the Advance Payments Program

Permanently increase the Advance Payments Program to $350,000 with predictable funding and streamlined administration requirements to keep costs down for farmers.

Ensure Risk Management Programs Remain Focused on Increasing Farm Risks

Ensure risk management programs remain separate from Canada’s sustainability objectives by, for example, removing the environmental risk assessment requirement for AgriInvest. At a time of increased risk for farmers, BRM programs must be inclusive of all agricultural commodities and emphasize accessibility and focus solely on delivering effective risk management support.

Launch New Disaster Relief Pilot and Enhance AgriStability

Take steps to fill a critical gap in Canada’s suite of business risk management programs by immediately piloting a new disaster relief program and making further amendments to AgriStability that increase responsiveness, equity and the level of support available to all agricultural commodities including sectors that are currently not eligible for some risk management programs such as the cattle sector, equines, horticulture and aquaculture.

Create a Federal Disaster Insurance Backstop

In addition, to supplement government risk management programs and keep private insurers at the table, establish a new federal program that is inclusive of all agricultural commodities where the Government of Canada guarantees the payment of claims above a certain level during disaster-related events as a measure to encourage private insurance companies to continue offering insurance products to agriculture industries.

Maintain Agriculture Streams of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and Support Pathways to Permanent Residency

Ensuring the agriculture streams of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) are maintained to support farmers’ seasonal and temporary needs, while at the same time supporting pathways to permanent residency for experienced temporary foreign workers by making the Agri-Food Pilot permanent and inclusive of all agriculture sectors to help meet the industries’ year-round labour needs.

Address the Veterinary Shortage

Address the critical shortage in veterinarians in both food animal and regulatory medicine required to ensure and maintain the high standards of animal welfare upheld by Canadian farmers in livestock and poultry by investing in the expansion and enhancement of the Canadian colleges of veterinary medicine to support the recruitment and accreditation of foreign-trained veterinarians

Launch Consultations to Prevent Labour Disruptions

Immediately launch consultations with industry representatives and implicated stakeholders to explore options to address the root causes of labour disruptions and prevent the increasing frequency and severity of labour disruptions that are destabilizing the Canadian economy and undermining Canada’s reputation as a reliable trading partner.
Industry Collaboration and Leadership By working closely with our members and partners, CFA is taking a leadership role through which the Canadian agriculture sector can speak with a unified voice to help elevate agriculture as a key growth sector.

Joint Letter from Agriculture and Agri-Food Sector on Supporting the Renewal of CUSMA

On December 8th 2025, a joint letter was sent to the Prime Minister, as well as to the Ministers of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Foreign Affairs, International Trade as well as the Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs, Internal Trade and One Canadian Economy.
This joint letter included 98 signatories from organizations across Canada, and expressed unanimous support for the full 16-year renewal of CUSMA.
Click here to read the full letter.

Open Letter: Let’s Grow Canada: Staking a Claim for Agriculture in the Government Mandate

On July 21st, 2025, CFA, along with stakeholders throughout the food supply chain, sent out a joint open letter to the Federal Government spotlighting the importance of agriculture as a crucial economic sector, with recommendations to tap into its potential to boost economic growth, drive innovation, support sustainability and productivity objectives and improve the standard of living of all Canadians.
Read the full letter here.