Considering the increasing incidence of extreme weather and other disaster or emergency events which are costing the agriculture sector and the Canadian economy billions every year, the CFA understands the need for, and is generally supportive of, Canada’s Emergency Management Framework for Agriculture in Canada.
However, we offer the following specific comments on the Framework, for consideration as the Department of Agriculture and Agri Food Canada (AAFC) gathers insights on ways to improve the Framework:
- Clarify roles and responsibilities
- Increase capacity building
- Enhance visibility, understanding and communication of the framework
- Incorporation of new emerging threats
- Incorporation of Lessons Learned from COVID-19
- More structured post-emergency analysis
- Better alignment of Business Risk Management (BRM) programs as part of response and recovery activities
- Ensure that commodity / sector-specific emergency management traceability programs are recognized