Livestock producers will know before Christmas how much money they will get from the federal government’s $600 million AgriInvest program.
There could be other announcements of financial assistance before the holiday, federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz told farmers in Regina last week.
And in Ottawa, senior Agriculture Canada official Danny Foster told MPs that significant funds are already available to hog producers who have enrolled for the 2007 year of AgriStability, the successor program to the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program.
Targeted advance payments are available, said the department’s director general of business risk management program development.
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Officials will determine the potential payout for 2007.
When the producer accepts the terms and conditions, a letter is sent outlining the coming payment and then a cheque is sent.
“It’s basically almost money in the bank,” Foster told the House of Commons agriculture committee.
“I’ve talked to bankers who said that with a letter like that, they would put it in the file and use that in terms of operating credit.”
However, producers must agree to reimburse any overpayment.
In Regina, at the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan annual meeting, Ritz said his department has come up with a way to work around negative margins and provide cash advances to producers.
“Negative margins, especially on cattle, were holding them down to very small dollars when it comes to the hurt that they’re facing out there,” Ritz told reporters. “My department briefed me yesterday on a new proposal. I’m fully behind it.
“It allows us to send out real dollars to livestock producers rather than the portion they would have got with that negative margin stigma.”
Producers will receive letters before Christmas telling them how much they’ll get from the $600 million AgriInvest program. The cheques will go out in January.
Ritz and his provincial counterparts will also continue to discuss how best to help hog producers.
“We are cognizant of the fact that we need to make some announcements before Christmas to let folks know what’s going to happen,” he said.
Foster also told MPs that producers in some provinces will be able to get payments this winter from production insurance being extended to livestock.
John Germs, an APAS delegate and hog producer near Saskatoon, asked Ritz and provincial minister Bob Bjornerud for short-term hog loans. He said the industry was in “total meltdown.”
Germs told Ritz, “let’s work together to create a solution for something that we’ve worked so hard so long to build up in this country. I think the hog industry has a wonderful future but we need some short-term help for a short-term problem here.”
Neither minister could promise a loan program.
Ritz told Germs that help is in the works and once again promised an announcement before Christmas. He was scheduled to hold a conference call with provincial ministers Dec. 13.
Ritz said he had seen preliminary numbers for Manitoba showing an average cash advance of $125,000. He said the department doesn’t want to put producers in overpayment situations.
“We’re going as far as we can with cash advances without putting you in trouble at the other end,” he said. “So hang in there, it’s coming.”
After his first meeting with Ritz since assuming his portfolio, Bjornerud said the advances might not be enough.
“I don’t think this is going to be quite enough to satisfy our cattle people and our hog people,” he told reporters. “The problem is so deep here.”
He didn’t rule out the province stepping forward with help of its own in the future.
The two ministers also talked about the new AgriRecovery, or disaster component of farm policy. The program will use a sliding funding scale, based on the size of the disaster, from 60 percent federal dollars to as much as 80 percent.
“Today was the first time I’ve heard Mr. Ritz say 80-20 and I like what I hear, so maybe we can get him converted over to the other programs, too,” Bjornerud said.
He said Saskatchewan would not hold up implementation of the new programs, even if they weren’t exactly what it wanted.
Bjornerud also did not rule out the province stepping forward on its own to help livestock producers.
