Challenge
When Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial Ministers of Agriculture agreed on an action plan for agricultural growth and profitability in the 21st century, they committed to conducting an extensive dialogue with Canadians about the future of agriculture in Canada. Fleishman-Hillard’s deep agriculture and food expertise, as well as the firm’s understanding of public policy and national reach, made it the logical choice to carry out these consultations for government.
The process involved multiple rounds of consultations to gather input for the new Agricultural Policy Framework (APF) from government and hundreds of industry stakeholders, including producers, food manufacturers, consumers, environmental groups, academics and other interested parties. Touching on areas including food safety and food quality, environment, science and innovation, renewal, and business risk management, the objective of this process was to achieve stakeholder consensus on vision, principles and goals, targets and indicators, and implementation measures for each of the subject areas.
Results
FH’s work not only helped inform the development of the framework, but the consultation process helped build support for the direction of the new APF. The consultation process was widely praised by participants for its impartiality and for the accuracy of its reporting. It was also endorsed by all the provincial and territorial Ministers of Agriculture as a valuable component of the APF’s development.
As a consequence of this work, the Government of Canada announced $8.2 billion in federal and provincial funding for agriculture over the following five years, the bulk of which was targeted to implement the APF.
