GC34 Government Priority on Sustainable Agriculture (1992G566)

WHEREAS in the Report of the Committee on Agriculture and Food Resources to the 29th General Council in 1982, a family farm was defined as “a farm in which the family members accept the responsibility for labour, management and risk-taking, and the stewardship of land and capital. It maintains a lifestyle that gives people a sense of dignity and belonging through their participation in the labour and decision-making of a family-centred enterprise,” and

WHEREAS the 33rd General Council expressed deep concern for the implications of the Canadian Government’s 1969 adopted policy of eliminating ½ of all Canadian farms which has been implemented “without concern for human well-being or the environment. It has caused economic hardship and unemployment, migration to urban centres and an increase in the numbers of poor and marginalized Canadians.”

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the 34th General Council of The United Church of Canada; urge the Federal and Provincial Governments to re-order their priorities and take all possible measures to establish sustainable – economically, environmentally and socially – family-farm agriculture as the central core of the Canadian economy.

GC34 1992 ROP, pp. 159-160