Growing Forward 2 obligations | Requests would increase department budget by 10 percent
The federal government has asked Parliament to approve a $270 million increase in Agriculture Canada spending for the current fiscal year, reflecting obligations under the Growing Forward 2 federal-provincial agreement.
It raises the Agriculture Canada budget for the 2013-14 fiscal year by more than 10 percent to $2.4 billion.
In supplementary spending estimates tabled in Parliament May 10, the government proposed $207 million to co-fund agreements with provinces for the second generation of Growing Froward programs.
“This funding is used to support cost-shared programming that is delivered by provincial and territorial partners,” said the spending estimates report to Parliament.
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“The programming is focused on innovation, market development and industry capacity. The goal of this programming is to encourage a more competitive and responsive agricultural sector.”
The estimates that will be approved by Parliament also include $47 million in business risk management financing.
“This funding will be used to provide financial support to farmers against market volatility and agricultural disasters,” the department said.
There was no explanation of why the extra money is being budgeted or for which program.
Growing Forward 2 significantly reduces coverage and payouts under the two main BRM programs — AgriStability and AgriInvest — potentially reducing government obligations over five years by $2 billion or more.
