In the dying days of the Chrétien government, Canada’s largest farm lobby continued to lock horns with Ottawa over its agricultural policy framework.
It was to be the government’s answer to farm income instability, moving the industry beyond crisis management when it was announced 18 months ago with a $6.4 billion federal commitment over six years.
The APF still lacks enough provincial support to bring it into effect and farmers have been critical or skeptical, imagining it will produce support programs worse than what existed.
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On Dec. 3, little more than a week before the Chrétien government becomes history on Dec. 12, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture once again complained that the new Canadian Agriculture Income Stabilization Program imposes too heavy a burden on farmers.
They are expected to invest thousands of dollars to gain coverage, but government funding comes only when a payout is triggered.
The CFA said just one-third of required producer deposits could total $1 billion, with interest costs of $60 million in the first year.
“That is money going straight from farmers’ pockets to banks,” CFA president Bob Friesen said Dec. 3 in a statement issued from federation offices in Ottawa. “The program design has lost focus of who this program was meant to benefit, the producers, not the banks.”
Dissident provinces Ontario and Saskatchewan have suggested a farmer “letter of credit” from a bank or credit union should be enough to secure a place in the program.
Federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief has said he will consider the idea, although there has been no indication of change in government rules before the Dec. 12 change of government when Vanclief may lose his job. He is not due back in the country from an overseas trip until the eve of the cabinet shuffle.
Friesen made one last plea to Vanclief to delay implementation until changes are made.
“We call on the federal government to work with industry and find a solution before we implement a program that costs those it was meant to benefit and profits those it was not,” said Friesen.
Meanwhile, federal finance minister John Manley rejected a CFA and Ontario industry proposal. The farmers’ lobby had asked that the existing program allowing deferral of some income tax on sales of breeding herds because of drought be extended to cattle producers affected by the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis.
Manley said in a November letter to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture that the government has made BSE compensation money available and farmers should look to the APF for any further help.
