CALGARY, AB: The Western Canadian Wheat Growers have surveyed the four Conservative Party leadership candidates regarding their position on six specific agriculture policies.

The six questions are:

1. As the next leader of the CPC, what would your top priorities be for farmers and the agriculture industry across the prairies?

2. What is your position on free and competitive markets in international trade, including the elimination of export subsidies, reduction of trade-distorting domestic support, and reducing tariffs and non-tariff barriers that inhibit market access?

3. What is your position on a carbon pricing system, including a credit and debit system that acknowledges the significant carbon reductions being achieved by prairie grain farmers through modern farming techniques and carbon sequestering?

4. Farmers depend on road and rail infrastructure to bring in inputs (seed and fertilizer) and export grain. What is your position on the grain transportation system and the ability to maintain an accountable and efficient system considering possible future overcrowding on the rail system? How will you support rural infrastructure investment?

5. What is your position on the development of agricultural innovations that make farmers more profitable and sustainable, with a science-based regulatory approval process for the introduction of new technologies, including the adoption of genetically modified crops?

6. Modern agriculture depends upon technology for market info, equipment software updates, timely communication and the ability to reduce our carbon emissions. How will you ensure that improved cellular and broadband technology will be available to rural areas?

The responses are available here.

If non-responsive candidates submit their answers, the website will be updated.

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