Budget includes $1.9 million for irrigation funding
It was a stay-the-course budget as far as agriculture was concerned when finance minister Ken Krawetz delivered Saskatchewan’s 2012-13 financial plan last week.
Most of the $430.8 million allocated to agriculture this year — the second largest agriculture budget in the province’s history — will fully fund the business risk management programs that Ottawa and Regina have agreed should support producers.
Three-quarters of the budget will cover crop insurance premiums, AgriStability and AgriInvest.
Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association president Mark Elford said he was pleased to see those programs fully funded. The economic situation in agriculture is generally positive, but programs like these must be in place, he added.
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Agriculture minister Bob Bjornerud repeated his message to reporters and stakeholders that there will be no AgriRecovery payments this year.
“Ad hoc is not reliable, not dependable for producers,” he said.
Elford said saying that is one thing, but the disaster program should still be better defined and governments should work to explain the triggers to producers.
“It’s something that I’ve asked about before, but it’s very hard for the government to say,” he said. “We’d like to know ahead of time.”
The budget includes $1.9 million in additional irrigation funding to rehabilitate the M1 Canal and an extra $1 million for international market development and trade advocacy.
A new expenditure in this year’s budget is $1.3 million to pay for meat inspection services. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has provided that to provincial plants at no charge but is now operating on a cost-recovery basis.
As of January 2014, it will not be providing the service at all.
The province is consulting with industry on what type of inspection service is required after that date.
Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities president David Marit said most of what SARM had been looking for in the budget from an agricultural perspective was already known.
Increased funding for rat eradication and continued money to deal with other pests was announced at the recent SARM convention. SARM administers many of the programs on behalf of the province.
“The big one for us is the revenue sharing,” Marit said.
“This money goes to municipalities without any strings attached … and how we spend that money is in the best interests of our ratepayers.”
Revenue sharing went up this year because municipalities get one full point of provincial sales tax revenue. Rural municipalities will receive a total of $68.9 million, or $6 million more than last year.
The province also maintained the $23.5 million funding for the municipal roads for the economy program.
Agricultural spending already announced included a record $20.4 million for research projects.
