Manitoba’s provincial agrologists have been called together for a meeting in Brandon April 30, but the agriculture minister says they are not facing mass layoffs.
“We’re not looking at doing what Saskatchewan did, which was hand out a bunch of pink slips on the day of their budget,” said agriculture minister Rosann Wowchuk.
“What we’re doing is looking at how we can improve services and better deliver them.”
Wowchuk is reviewing how her department delivers its programs to farmers. Right now, agencies that offer crop insurance, agricultural credit and agrological extension services often have small, independent offices.
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She also wants more specialists among the province’s corps of agrologists.
“We’ve had a lot of new specialties come up, where people are moving into new crops and they’re looking for specialists in those crops, and we’re looking at how we might deliver that better,” said Wowchuk.
Positions cut
In Saskatchewan, the provincial network of small rural service centres is being replaced by a smaller number of regional offices with 119 positions to be cut.
In the Manitoba budget, 20 jobs were cut from the agriculture department, but those were all vacant positions that will not be filled.
Altogether the Manitoba government cut 400 unfilled jobs across all departments.
“There’s nobody losing a job,” said finance minister Greg Selinger.
“The idea is not to cut front line services, but to find ways to deliver them more efficiently.”
