Former President of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers Jack Wilkinson. Photo courtesy of IFAP's website.

The former President of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers would like to see a bio-digester installed in every enclosed livestock operation in Canada. jack Wilkinson made that comment during a recent presentation in Winnipeg.

Wilkinson feels now is the time to bump up the game plan regarding farmers and the environment. He says with the upcoming new Federal/Provincial ag agreement (Growing Forward 2), there's no reason why it can't have a substantial environmental pillar so the resources are there for farmers to make positive changes.

He notes you always hear people talk about where is the money going to come from to make these changes, where's the regulatory framework that will make things easy to do, and where's the technical expertise required. Wilkinson stresses these things need to be put in place so when farmers do go down the environmental road it's as smooth as possible unlike what is happening today. He says your hear nothing but problems from farmers who are trying to install biodigesters in Atlantic Canada, Ontario, and elsewhere. Those problems could be solved if the right things were included in the new agreement, according to Wilkinson.

Wilkinson says Manitoba's hog barn expansion moratorium is a good example where an alternative environmental policy could have been developed. He wonders why the issue of phosphates entering Lake Winnipeg isn't being looked at in a more constructive way. Wilkinson says instead of having a moratorium, why don't we "peel the onion back" and determine what problem we are trying to solve and put the tools in place to do it.