OTTAWA (Staff) — One of the great uncertainties about the new national whole farm safety net program is whether supply managed sectors will be included.
Supply management sectors have been invited to help design and then to use the new safety net program, said Hector Delanghe, an Ontario farmer heading the safety nets consultation committee
So far, they have decided not to take part in the effort, although supply management views are represented at the table by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, he told a Commons committee.
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Delanghe said the option will be there for dairy, poultry and egg farmers to use the whole farm safety net system as a back-up if their supply management protections are changed.
“We’re not excluding the possibility at all,” he said.
Two supply management farmers on the committee — Liberals Wayne Easter, dairy, and Murray Calder, chicken — said their sectors would see little benefit in an insurance system.
“As a supply management producer, I would not want to move away from what I have now to what is being proposed,” said Easter.
Earl Geddes, executive director of the safety nets committee, agreed.
The message from the marketing board sectors is “we like the system we have now,” he said. “You can make it available to us but we will not avail ourselves of it.”
Later, Geddes said that attitude may change in later years as supply management reforms are made.
The safety nets committee representatives said it is important the new system be generally available to Canadian farmers in order to put it in compliance with international trade rules.
However, if all supply management farmers joined the new program, it would have significant financial implications. It would add 40,000 farmers who could stretch the resources available in a year of pay-outs.
