By: Maynard van der Galien

Two winters ago I attended a workshop in Renfrew that studied the establishment of a small charge on the retail sale of food. The Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario (CFFO) proposed that the small tax would go to farmers for environmental services – keeping the countryside attractive and environmentally friendly.

The concept of a food tax was something new. There were many questions. Who collects the levy? If it starts at one per cent, will it end up much higher? How will the money be distributed? What per cent is going to be taken off for administration? What about imported food? Could some of the money also go to Ontario’s 226 food banks?

After all the pros and cons had been well discussed, I asked the facilitator, Elbert van Donkersgoed, if he could ask for a show of hands to see how many were in favour of the tax.

All hands, except mine, went up. I was dumbfounded.

CFFO did 19 workshops across Ontario on the proposed small charge on the retail sale of food. About 215 members and friends of CFFO participated. Most people thought a levy on food was a good idea.

In conversations about barriers to getting support for the levy, workshop participants identified consumers, farmers, politicians and retailers – in other words, just about everyone – as likely sources of resistance.

Thirty-one per cent thought consumers would resist because they have more pressing issues and the levy would be seen as just another tax.

Twenty-five per cent thought that farmers themselves would resist since it would make consumers more demanding. They would expect vigorous squabbling about who would get the environmental payments.

Fourteen per cent thought that the other players would resist: the general public because changing the status quo is a hard sell; retailers because a farmer-consumer partnership could become a threat to their control; and politicians because they would lose some influence.

It was proposed that a farmer-consumer partnership – not government – control the funds raised by the levy.

These barriers did not dampen the conversation about opportunities that a levy and environmental payments could create.

Thirty-three per cent thought that farmers would have better incomes and a better public image.

Twenty per cent thought that consumers would be empowered to contribute to the environment and would gain from the development of a creative-farmer-consumer partnership.

At the end of the session, participants were asked if they were "willing to pay a small levy on food to create a new source income for farming and the countryside."

Eighty-nine per cent said yes. Wow!

Why were those CFFO farmers so positive towards a food tax? Some say it just might be the only way to save our family farms. Looking at 2002 figures, a one per cent tax on the sale of food in Ontario would bring in $220 million annually. Another $130 million could come from the food service sector. That’s a handsome sum of money that could go to keep the countryside pretty. It’s done in some European countries.

I felt the idea of a food tax wasn’t going anywhere — just pie in the sky. I put my notes away in a bottom drawer. Recently, the idea of a food tax has resurfaced again.

Now the Glengarry County Federation of Agriculture is lobbying for a three per cent tax on food to help cover production costs. Without a special food tax, many Glengarry farmers say they’ll be hard-pressed to cover input costs this growing season. They say costs of inputs have gone up on average 50 per cent while money received for the crop has stayed relatively unchanged over the past 25 years.

The Glengarry Federation says a three per cent tax would add $3 to a $100 grocery bill and bring in an average of $196 a year per Ontario household. Multiplied by about by 4.4 million households, that’s $858.4 million to support production costs.

I’m still opposed. I agree farmers do need more money, however it shouldn’t have to come in the form of another tax for the consumer.