Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz has suggested that the looming September repayment deadline facing livestock producers who took advance payments last year could be waived to a later date.
“I have the capacity as minister to look at those applications at that time,” he said during an appearance at the Canadian Federation of Agriculture annual meeting. “There is a procedure and a protocol that I can’t jump the gun away ahead of time but as soon as we can, we will make those announcements. But you can be sure I’ll follow through with my tattoo of putting farmers first.”
Read Also
No special crop fireworks expected
farmers should not expect fireworks in the special crops market due to ample supplies.
His comments came during a CFA question and answer period during which Ritz:
* Rejected a plea from Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Bette Jean Crews that federal AgriStability funds be available to support provincial business risk management safety net programs.
“Our data says AgriStability is working well, I wouldn’t say fantastic, for 80 percent of farmers,” he said. “There are 20 percent we are having a problem with.”
But federal co-funding of provincially designed BRM programs, what Ritz calls “reactive” programs, is not an answer and governments have to watch what they spend.
“As to your point about using AgriFlexibility for business risk management programs, I’ll be short and succinct. No.”
* Suggested the possibility that once the current Canadian Transportation Agency railway service review is complete, a costing review may be started.
Reports that junior transport minister Rob Merrifield had ruled out a costing review caused some farm leaders to worry that Ottawa would balk at an investigation into how much it really costs the railways to move grain.
“I don’t see that as an unreasonable request,” Ritz told Agricultural Producers’ Association of Saskatchewan president Greg Marshall when he asked for a costing review commitment. But there was no firm commitment.
* Promised Canadian Pork Council president Jurgen Preugschas that if the government receives complaints about imported pork products failing to meet Canadian labelling requirements, they will be pulled from store shelves.
Although he offered little positive response to any of the CFA questions, Ritz said he wants to work with Canada’s largest farm lobby to design farmer-friendly programs.
In defence of the Growing Forward BRM programs, Ritz said $4.5 billion had been paid out to farmers since the programs began in 2008.
And with changes last year to the Canadian Agricultural Loans Act, raising the maximum loan to $500,000 and targeting beginning farmers, loans doubled during the past year to $80 million, 100 of them to beginning farmers.
