Agriculture minister Marie-Claude Bibeau has launched a federal consultation process for the next Agricultural Policy Framework.

The framework is a wide-ranging federal-provincial agreement to replace the current 5 year, 3 billion dollar Canadian Agricultural Partnership, which expires in March 2023.

The consultations launched this week are designed to gather ideas from various groups.

These groups include farmers, processors, women in agriculture, youth, indigenous communities, environmental organizations and small and emerging sub-sectors.

Consultations begin this month and will continue through the spring of 2022.

The federal government says farmers and processors depend on a solid foundation of support and Bibeau encourages all representatives of the farming and agri-food sector to get involved in the consultations.

Federal and provincial agriculture ministers are to meet in September to outline consultations and set priorities in developing the next 5 year Agricultural Policy Framework.
—-