In the last week alone, the agriculture industry has taken several significant blows, threatening the very existence of one sector, and leaving many farmers with the likelyhood of going out of business, yet our Provincial Agriculture Minister continues his 'hands-off' approach.

First it was McCains on Wednesday dropping as many as 20 of its growers and reducing production by 20-30 percent. Then there was the announcement on Thursday of the Larsens plant in Nova Scotia shutting down for good. Now the few pork producers left on PEI will be forced to lose even more money because now their hogs have to be shipped to Quebec and Ontario. On Friday, Cavendish Farms made a similar announcement to that of McCains two days earlier...cutting about 20 farmers to reduce production. I would assume that since production at both french fry plants is being reduced, that processing jobs will also be cut.

What has Minister Webster's reaction been to the three days of catastrophic news to Island farmers? Concerning the McCain/Cavendish cuts, his response in both cases has been, "These growers are going to do some soul searching on whether they grow in the open market on a speculative basis or the worse case, discontinue". Regarding the plight of hog farmers in PEI Webster said, "_______________". Exactly, he said nothing.

While I realize that government can't do everything, there must be something reasonable somewhere between 'everything' and 'nothing'. Webster's actions this week clearly demonstrate that the Ghizvernment has determined that doing nothing, is it's best agricultural strategy.

So why is government doing so little for agriculture? Could George Webster, with his brother and the Food Trust in mind, as well as his own life after politics, have selfish reasons for doing nothing to support farmers on PEI? Given that the Websters are quite soundly established in the industry, paired with the bargain on the Food Trust sale and access to multiple PNP units, the minister's own farming interests seem very well positioned to wait out the chaos in the industry. Webster's 'que sera sera' attitude tells me that the Ghizvernment has only a chosen few farmers in mind when it comes to agricultural policy on PEI. Are the Websters among the chosen?

The fallout from the short-sightedness of this administration, and the resulting decimation suffered by the industry, is that we may in fact lose it ALL. Losing one sector in agriculture sets the stage for next one to go down.

Diversity in agriculture is very important to PEI in a number of ways. Having a healthy red meat industry allows crop farmers for instance, to be less reliant on chemical fertilizers, by providing a steady local supply of organic fertilizer. Of course, hogs and cattle need to eat. Hardships in both the pork and beef sectors have severly impacted the feed grain sector as well. In fact, feed grain production in PEI has been reduced by 140,000 acres in just the last couple of years. Lost markets for feed grains makes crop rotation more difficult, which poses another problem for potato farmers. Then what, more chemicals? Cue the ground water quality problems, and more fish kills, etc.

Our Agriculture minister, despite his farming expertise, seems to have no clue when it comes to the big picture. Why does he appear to be so willing to just allow farm after farm to disappear in PEI? And what if anything, is in the highly touted Rural Action Plan that will mitigate the loss of the entire agricultural industry on PEI, while the minister is asleep at the wheel? Where are we going to be when we have NO FOOD PRODUCED ON PEI???

That's where we're headed.