A plan by Saskatchewan’s opposition party to take 2002 yields out of crop insurance calculations was voted down in the legislature last month.
Provincial agriculture minister Clay Serby said the idea was unworkable.
But Saskatchewan Party agriculture critic Donna Harpauer, who introduced the motion, said it would have been a small step toward helping farmers devastated by drought.
“Presently there’s a clause in crop insurance that you take your last five years, your own farming practice record, and that’s averaged and that’s the basis that your present year’s coverage is calculated on,” she said during debate.
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She said farmers aren’t to blame for last year’s poor yields, but they will be faced with higher premiums and lower coverage.
“They can only get coverage for 80 percent of their farming history practice as it is,” she later told reporters. “If that average yield is quite low, they’re going to have to really weigh whether it’s responsible economically for their farming operation to pay a high premium for low coverage.”
Serby said the the idea wouldn’t work because that type of change has to be negotiated with re-insurers and approved by Ottawa.
“The minute that you move to changing the 10-year rolling average to something less than that and you take all the low years out, what happens is that the cost of your insurance programs is going to go up and there’s a higher risk then to the re-insurer.”
Serby said there is more merit to the idea of throwing out the best and worst years in a 10-year average.
“That way your fluctuations aren’t as great and your premiums won’t be as great,” he said.
