Agriculture took the national spotlight yesterday with the National Agriculture Leaders Debate in Ottawa.

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) held the webcast event, with ag representatives from the Conservative, NDP, Liberal, Bloc, and Green Parties. Farmers sent in pre-taped video questions for the politicians, including topics such as research and temporary foreign workers.

Jan Slomp, president of the National Farmers Union thinks one topic that was not discussed enough was grain prices and transportation.

"That should've been way better addressed — it was barely mentioned," he says. "None of it was addressed properly and none of it was explaining how much western grain farmers are losing compared to previous times when things were in place."

Keystone Agricultural Producers president Dan Mazier, on the other hand, thought transportation had balanced discussion, and said the debate was good for agriculture in general, with many topics brought to a national focus.

With Trans-Pacific Partnership meetings continuing in Atlanta this week, another topic that unsurprisingly came up at the debate was supply management. Mazier noted it's a topic that's been in the media a lot lately.

"There is a lot of fear that supply management that's going to get hurt, and rightfully so," he says. "There's a lot of money invested in this system, but one thing supply management has is stability. If there's going to be any growth on anything, it's going to be in supply management... Yes, it's expensive to get in, but it's very stable."

Debate coverage was webcast on the CFA website, www.cfa-fca.ca.