The year 2005 was a bumper year for major reports on fixing Canadian agriculture:

· The Honourable Wayne Easter, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, produced "Empowering Canadian Farmers in the Marketplace" in July.

· The National Farmers Union wrote "The Farm Crisis: Its Causes and Solutions," a submission to the Federal-provincial Ministers of Agriculture Meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta in July.

· The Agriculture Institute of Canada commissioned a discussion paper, "Big Farms, Small Farms: Strategies in Sustainable Agriculture to fit All Sizes," for their annual conference in November.

· The Canadian Federation of Agriculture wrote "Agricultural Policy Framework II: A Canadian Farm Bill" in December to get attention for agriculture during the federal election.

Four reports with different approaches to solving falling farm incomes.

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture’s approach morphs the five pillars of the federal Agricultural Policy Framework into three: strategic growth, business risk management and public goods and services. Interesting shifts. Can a new framework deliver a new beginning for farmers? Consider this sentence from the report: "Business Risk Management programs are designed such that when a producer incurs an unforeseen loss, BRM programming will provide support…." There’s a hitch with that analysis. Further declines in farm gate prices are foreseen. We know farmers are caught in a pattern of thinner and thinner slices of the consumer food dollar. Reorganizing farm policy is not enough.

The Agriculture Institute of Canada’s discussion document covers a broad sweep of sustainability issues: economic, environmental and social. A detailed list of the wide range of challenges in agriculture offers some new ways forward. Two are noteworthy:

 Big farms and small farms need different treatment to be sustainable.

 Farms are multifunctional and should be paid for ecological services and sustainable practices.

The National Farmers Union submission debunks a long list of supposed causes of the farm income crisis, and then focuses on the lack of producer market power. Their report proposes a 16-point plan to shore up farmers’ ability to influence what happens beyond the farm gate: for example, manage supply by setting aside land, expanding orderly marketing agencies and limiting supermarket and processor market power.

Parliamentary Assistant, Wayne Easter, reported that the farmers who attended his cross-Canada consultations wanted to be empowered in the marketplace. That led him to call for limits on the market power of corporations in concentrated sectors and propose help for farmer-owned processing and retailing, along with innovation, communication and investment in infrastructure.

Four major reports in one year. Proof there is farm crisis. Proof, too, there is no clear consensus on the best or possible solutions.