Portage la Prairie farmer Ian Wishart can appreciate the importance of improving farm management practices.
But during the Keystone Agricultural Producers annual convention he urged Manitoba agriculture minister Rosann Wowchuk to be cautious about requiring farmers to fill out too many forms. Soon farming might become an administrative nightmare.
“In my future I see having to file manure management plans, having to take a pesticide application course so that I can apply pesticides on my land. Because I do a little bit of custom work spreading manure I now have to have a manure applicator’s licence, as an irrigator I need to have a water rights licence I have to report to annually, I have to do environmental farm plans, I have a couple of crops that I grow that have food safety regulations and reports to be filed annually so that I can sell these products in the marketplace, I’m in my usual crop insurance returns, NISA (Net Income Stabilization Account) Ð of course, GST quarterlies, going to have to do (applications) for the wheat board in the future,” said Wishart.
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“I know what I’m going to be doing for the next few winters: pretty much filing forms and going to school.
“We have to be very concerned that we don’t overburden farmers.”
If the paperwork load gets too great, family farms might not be able to handle it, he said.
Wowchuk sympathized.
“Nobody wants to be overburdened with paperwork,” she said.
