WINNIPEG – Federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief predicts that by autumn, enough provinces will have signed the agricultural policy framework to bring the farm safety net and income disaster plan into effect, more than a year after it was announced.
Last week, New Brunswick agriculture minister David Alward became the fourth provincial minister to sign APF implementing agreements, worth more than $6 million in federal funds for food safety, environmental initiatives, research and training.
Vanclief told a July 10 news conference he expects other signatures soon. To get rid of the old Net Income Stabilization Account program and usher in the new, three more provinces must sign and the signatories must represent at least half the economic value of the Canadian farm sector.
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Alberta has signed but it does not count toward the total because it is not a signatory to the current NISA program.
“I’ve had a number of provinces indicate they plan to sign,” said Vanclief.
And indeed, several other provincial ministers did indicate during the summer federal-provincial agriculture ministers’ meeting that they plan to sign, sometimes reluctantly.
With strong farmer resistance to the APF’s safety net and an unwillingness in Ottawa to make significant changes, provincial governments have been caught between two opposing forces.
Prince Edward Island minister Mitch Murphy said in an interview it is frustrating to be dealing with a program that is a “moving target” and that has raised so much suspicion from farmers. But he said, “at some point in the not too distant future, like it or lump it, we’re going to sign it.”
Saskatchewan’s Clay Serby has said many times he plans to sign but so far has not. Manitoba’s Rosann Wowchuk is in much the same position.
Last week, Quebec’s new Liberal agriculture minister Francoise Gauthier became the last province to sign the APF framework of principles. She said during the meeting she wants to sign the implementing agreements later in the summer.
Back home, her farmers are furious, insisting that to join the APF would be to lower the standards of some farm programs already available in Quebec.
Ontario remains a holdout.
A coalition of Ontario farm leaders has told minister Helen Johns not to sign if she does not win significant amendments. Johns said in an interview she will follow the wishes of the farmers, but they must realize that if the program starts without them, Ottawa’s 60 percent funding of farm programs will not be available.
One of the most formidable farm group opponents of the framework has decided to concede defeat.
Grain Growers of Canada board members last week decided to halt the fight for changes in the APF business risk management proposals. For more than a year, GGC had joined the Canadian Federation of Agriculture in demanding changes to the proposal and a one-year extension of existing safety net programs until the APF is improved.
“Certainly, we still have some serious concerns but there comes a point when you come to the conclusion that the fight is not worth the energy,” Alberta wheat producer and GGC president Ted Menzies said.
“This is not forever, it is five years,” said Menzies. “We’ll have to watch it and if it proves to have the flaws we think it has, we will push for changes.”
He said the current cattle industry crisis because of bovine spongiform encephalopathy illustrates the inadequacy of the APF.
