CALGARY — Alberta agriculture minister Walter Paszkowski has agreed to examine the shortfall in 1992 GRIP payments for wheat.
Producers expected to receive $19 million more but the ministerial review doesn’t mean that farmers can expect cheques in the mail to immediately make up the difference. Paszkowski told farmers at a special meeting in Camrose March 23 that there’s probably no money in provincial coffers to boost their payments.
The frost of 1992 downgraded more than half the Alberta wheat crop and through the Gross Revenue Insurance Plan farmers hoped to recover some of their losses.
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Andy Kovacs, manager of the Alberta Soft Wheat Producers, said the shortfall occurred because of the formula used to calculate the grade loss factor used by crop insurance adjusters.
For example, damaged soft wheat that graded feed was increased to No. 2 wheat by a factor of .857 when it should have been .725. Soft wheat growers received about $50 per acre less than their target revenue.
Another shortfall
Farmers received their final GRIP payments for the 1992 crop two months ago, and because the same formula was used for 1993, another shortfall will happen, said Kovacs. Farmers want an adjustment for 1993 and 1994 where late harvests downgraded grains.
“The same thing is going to happen for the 1993 crop. It’s just that there was less feed wheat,” he said.
Soft wheat growers were the hardest hit by this problem. There are about 2,250 soft wheat growers who are owed $6.4 million of the $19 million from 1992.
Kovacs is still optimistic there’s some room to move and the minister has said he will be in touch.
There was also a $5 million canola and barley overpayment, which Kovacs said the farmer delegation in Camrose wants clawed back as was done with a durum overpayment last year.
Payments for the 1993 crop arrived in November, a second interim payment arrived March 1 and the final payment for that year will be in mid-February of 1995. Farmers received four cheques for 1992, so many may not realize they are short, said Kovacs.
