David Rolfe had to look closely to find anything new for agriculture in Manitoba’s latest provincial budget.
He saw $3 million committed for increased slaughter capacity and an additional $2 million as a topup to the $50 million already pledged for the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program.
The province, in the budget released last week, also is going ahead with a 50 percent reduction in the special levy paid on farmland, a move that is supposed to save farmers $20 million per year.
“Other than that, there certainly wasn’t a lot of agriculture in the budget considering its importance to the provincial economy,” said Rolfe, president of Keystone Agricultural Producers.
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One of the main things he had hoped for was announcement of a contingency fund to help Manitoba farmers endure the effects of a continued border closure for live cattle, poor commodity prices, the poor quality crop of 2004 and rising farm debt.
The province did put $314 million into a rainy day fund, but none of that money was designated specifically for agriculture. Considering the current circumstances, Rolfe hopes a portion of that fund will be used this year to help producers.
“I presume they could draw on that if they saw a need there and there certainly is a need.”
He said the reduction in the farmland levy was welcome, but he’s concerned about how the province went about doing that in its budget.
The rebate is included within the agriculture department’s budget, rather than in general revenues. That could make it easier for the province to reverse that reduction as a cost-cutting measure some time in the future, Rolfe said.
A further concern for KAP was that compensation for waterfowl and wildlife damage was not restored to 100 percent and instead remains at 80 percent. Restoring the full compensation would have cost the province no more than $400,000 a year, said Rolfe.
“You would expect 100 percent compensation, considering the squeeze producers are in.”
