The Saskatchewan agriculture ministry is expanding its rural extension service while cutting city jobs.
Agriculture minister Bob Bjornerud announced Jan. 29 that three regional extension offices would be re-established in Kindersley, Watrous and Moose Jaw.
Each office will be fully staffed with crop, livestock, forage and farm business management specialists.
As well, vacancies in the regional offices in Outlook, North Battleford, Prince Albert, Swift Current, Tisdale, Weyburn and Yorkton will be filled.
“Our focus is now back on the farmgate,” Bjornerud said.
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The offices will also eventually house approximately 30 staff who will administer AgriStability, along with 110 people now at the Melville crop insurance head office.
Bjornerud said last June that he wanted to make extension staff and information more available to farmers and ranchers.
Five years ago, the then-NDP government laid off 120 people and closed 22 rural service centres, including Kindersley and Watrous. Moose Jaw became a call centre, known as the Agriculture Knowledge Centre.
The call centre will still operate, but will also be open to the public.
Bjornerud said farmers told him they needed services beyond phone lines and websites. The staff at all the offices will be available for on-farm visits and meetings.
The ministry will transfer 15 positions to rural offices and has issued layoff notices to 20 full and part-time employees. The layoffs affect 11 people in Regina and nine in Saskatoon who had filled the equivalent of 16 full-time positions.
Deputy minister Alanna Koch said some new staff will be hired to fill the jobs in the new offices and vacancies in the existing ones.
“In some cases we’re transferring individuals out to those offices.”
She said employees have known changes were coming. Some of the job cuts were made to reduce duplication. Koch cited ministry staff at the Saskatoon food centre as an example.
David Marit, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, said rural residents welcome enhanced services.
The move is a positive step, added Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association president Jack Hextall.
“It’s important that these services are available to producers out there in the regional offices as well as at their kitchen tables,” he said.
NDP agriculture critic Pat Atkinson said the government made it sound as if it is expanding services when really it is laying people off.
“Too bad they don’t have a livestock policy to go along with the livestock specialists,” she said.
In addition to the extension changes, the ministry reorganization will see the Agriculture Knowledge Centre now administer the general inquiry line and the Farm Stress Line.
