The Progressive Conservative government has come up short with policies to help Manitoba farmers, according to the president of Keystone Agricultural Producers.
Don Dewar said the farm lobby group hopes safety nets become the main agricultural issue in the ongoing election campaign.
This election comes at a difficult time for rural Manitoba, as the slings and arrows of world trade subsidies and retaliatory measures hurt both grain and cattle returns.
During the Tories’ most recent term in office, farm income has gone from rosy highs to paltry lows.
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And the provincial government has focused on adding value to grain in the wake of the loss of the Crow transportation subsidy, noted Dewar.
It established a task force on value-added agriculture which toured through rural Manitoba, it introduced elk ranching and it brought in legislation for new generation co-ops. Farmers have seen a flour mill and strawboard plant rise at Elie, Man., and livestock production boomed.
But the Tories have consistently refused to help livestock producers expand by waiving provincial taxes on new farm buildings and equipment, Dewar said, contrary to neighboring governments in Saskatchewan and Alberta. And its diversification policies have not helped all grain farmers.
“Not everybody can own a hog barn,” he said, explaining there will likely always be more feed grain than demand from livestock in the province.
Farmers appreciated the popular, lower-cost enhanced crop insurance program started during this past term, and compensation for crop losses to wildlife and waterfowl, Dewar said.
The Tories also established a research fund in the province, with help from the federal government, but used safety net money to do it.
“We always welcome research, and if other safety nets were adequately serving us, I think we could accept research as a safety net.”
During this mandate, the government also quietly scrapped the Gross Revenue Insurance Plan. At the time, GRIP was costing farmers premiums without hope of returns, because commodity prices were high.
But with today’s low prices, farmers call KAP to complain about the loss of GRIP.
“We said we would rue the day when it went,” Dewar said.
Two years ago, KAP first met with agriculture minister Harry Enns to talk about forecasts for dropping income, and warned him his government would need to be ready for the present crisis.
Jumped the gun
Dewar acknowledged the provincial government was quick to announce a $50 per acre payment to farmers who couldn’t plant crops this spring. But he said the Tories have been less than co-operative and proactive on the bigger issue of making the Agricultural Income Disaster Assistance program work.
“The worst is yet to come, in our minds, and our government was not supportive of us in trying to make the AIDA program more functional.
“I think they dropped the ball on that one.”
NDP agriculture critic and farmer Rosann Wowchuk agreed with Dewar’s assessment.
“Their weakness in their last term is their inability to push the federal government into a national safety net program,” she said.
The provincial Tories supported the end of the Crow transportation subsidy, but farmers have been hurt by higher freight costs and low commodity prices, Wowchuk said.
She said the province has lost jobs in the food processing sector since the Conservatives took office.
“They’ve talked the language of value-added, but when you look at the numbers – we haven’t gained very much,” Wowchuk said.
Liberal leader Jon Gerrard said the Tory government was “reasonably responsive to farmers’ needs” in the past term.
The Tories seem to have a good record on safety nets, Gerrard said.
But past Tory and NDP governments failed farmers by not increasing natural gas infrastructure to levels seen in Saskatchewan and Alberta, he said.
He also criticized Tories for their “laid-back, passive approach” to rail-line abandonment.
