Read CFA’s submission for the 2025 Fall Federal Budget
Several consultations are being undertaken during the lead up to the 2025 Federal Budget to gather recommendations on how federal dollars should be spent. CFA submitted a Pre-Budget submission to help inform the development of the Fall 2025 budget.
Read the submission here.
With a sizable agriculture sector and a relatively small population, Canada is well-positioned to make agriculture a strategic driver of economic growth by adding value through market diversification at home and abroad. However, Canadian farmers are being squeezed between rising input costs, ongoing labour shortages, increasingly frequent and severe climate events, and deepening financial pressures. These domestic realities are now compounded by growing global instability: escalating geopolitical tensions, chronic instability and uncertainty in Canada-U.S. trade, as well as punitive tariffs from China on key Canadian exports like canola which continue to undermine the sector’s growth potential and Canada’s reputation as a reliable supplier in global markets.
Moving forward, we call on the Government of Canada to protect the interests of Canadian farmers by ensuring that the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) continues to support open, predictable and rules-based trade, while working with industry stakeholders on an approach to mitigate the impacts of a potential trade war on Canadian producers. In this context, CFA also strongly supports efforts to diversify and expand markets, which are essential for reducing risk and driving long-term growth. At the same time, we recognize and appreciate the Government’s unwavering commitment to protecting Canada’s supply management system, which is fundamental to the economic vitality of rural Canada and Canadian food security.
Additionally, while the government’s commitment to increase the AgriStability compensation rate from 80% to 90% and permanently double coverage from $3 million to $6 million per farm is a meaningful first step toward addressing long-standing gaps in risk management, we urge the government to undertake an urgent and comprehensive review of the entire Business Risk Management (BRM) program suite, prioritizing robust stakeholder engagement. Such a review is essential to ensure these tools are responsive to the evolving risk landscape facing farmers and provide more equitable and effective support across all types of producers.
The CFA recognizes the importance of targeted, efficient spending. Accordingly, our recommendations emphasize low- or no-cost policy and regulatory reforms capable of delivering measurable impact—by eliminating unnecessary regulatory barriers, enhancing interdepartmental coordination, and optimizing existing program delivery. However, at the same time we cannot dismiss the tremendous financial burden many producers are experiencing across Canada. In 2024, realized net income of Canadian farmers dropped by $3.3 billion (-25.9%)—the sharpest decline since 2018. One of the key drivers of increased operating costs was rising interest expenses, which grew 28.6% for the second straight year. Despite the Bank of Canada beginning to lower interest rates mid-year, many producers had already taken on significant debt which rose 14.1% in 2024, the largest annual increase since 1981.
It is important to recognize Canadian agriculture as an investment, not as an expense. As such, we cannot lose sight of the tremendous economic potential of the Canadian agriculture sector. With the right investment in domestic production, value-added processing, productivity and exports, the sector has the potential to more than double that and drive upwards of an additional $100 billion in GDP growth over the next 10 years, totalling up to $250 billion by 2035.
Key Recommendations
1. Align regulatory frameworks with a growth-oriented agenda—by mandating key regulators to explicitly support Canada’s food security and competitiveness objectives. This also includes recognizing trusted international reviews to accelerate access to critical farm inputs and maintaining high standards for health, safety, and environmental protection while ensuring the efficient movement of goods across the country and internationally.
2. Provide a blanket remission for all currently impacted and future potential critical farm inputs subject to the Government of Canada’s Countermeasures in Response to U.S. Tariffs on Canadian Goods. These products include, but are not necessarily limited to, certain fertilizer products, farm equipment and machinery, seed (including low erucic acid rape or colza seeds) as well as feed ingredients and veterinary products. Blanket remission for critical farm inputs should be retroactive to March 4th, 2025.
3. Ensure that the new $5-billion Trade Diversification Corridor Fund prioritizes the needs of the agriculture and agri-food sector by consulting with industry stakeholders to ensure projects support the sector’s ability to secure and reliably serve new and existing markets in Canada and abroad.
4. Permanently increase the interest free portion of the Advance Payments Program to $350,000 and streamline administration requirements, including reversing AAFC’s recent changes to their lending policy which requires administrators to classify all clients as “high risk” for four years regardless of their credit standing, thereby placing upward pressure on fees and adding unnecessary delays for farmers.
5. Ensure the agricultural streams of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) are maintained to support farmers’ seasonal and temporary needs, while at the same time supporting pathways to permanent residency for experienced temporary foreign workers by reintroducing and making the Agri-Food Pilot permanent and inclusive of all agricultural sectors to help meet the industries’ year-round labour needs.
6. Immediately launch consultations with industry representatives and implicated stakeholders to explore options to address the root causes of labour disruptions, and modernize labour laws to establish a clear, transparent, and expedited process for resolving labour disputes, to prevent the increasing frequency and severity of labour disruptions that are destabilizing the Canadian economy and undermining Canada’s reputation as a reliable trading partner.
7. Introduce a permanent Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance across all classes of farm equipment that would allow producers to depreciate 100% of their capital allocated to purchases of farm equipment for the first fiscal year as an incentive for farmers to adopt innovative technologies, upgrade their equipment and support Canada’s productivity objectives.
8. Commit to modernizing the Canada Grain Act (CGA) in consultation with producers to ensure Canada’s grain system keeps pace with evolving market needs while reaffirming the Canadian Grain Commission’s mandate to maintain standards and regulate grain handling in the interests of grain producers. Priorities under CGA modernization should include increased export sales market transparency, grain contract modernization, and strengthening producer payment protection.