British Columbia farmers who experienced income declines in 2017 may be able to recover some of their losses under special provisions set up under an existing farm program.
“It’s actually just enhancing a program that already exists but we’ve established new guidelines to reflect the challenges that farmers and ranchers have felt this year,” said Lana Popham, B.C. minister of agriculture.
“It’s been a pretty challenging year, I would say, for growers in the province. Of course, everyone is very familiar with the intensity of the forest fires and how that affected ranchers in the Cariboo.”
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Popham pointed out other instances in other areas of the province that also hampered producers’ efforts in 2017, including invasive pests, flooding and severe freezing.
The new provisions, the 2017 AgriStability Enhancement Program, were developed under the existing AgriStability program.
“We looked at this program (AgriStability) and it’s subscribed to by many, many farmers. Some make the decision that they’re going to take the risk and they don’t subscribe. So, unfortunately because people were so hard hit this year, we decided to enhance it.”
The late fee for the program has been waived.
“So farmers can sign up for that now, even though it’s the end of the season and we will back date that insurance so that they’re covered for some of these disasters,” Popham said.
According to information provided by the B.C. ministry of agriculture, the compensation paid out has increased from 70 percent to 80 percent when margins fall below the 30 percent threshold.
As well, the AgriStability Enhancement Program eliminates reference margin limits.
“There have already been applications in, but will probably see about $10 million going towards that program,” Popham said.
“Then we’ve got this AgriRecovery program, which mostly covers the devastation from the forest fires. That’s another $20 million provincial and federal funding that farmers will be able to apply for. We’re trying to be as flexible as possible.”
According to Popham, there have been more than 70 applications on the AgriRecovery side and there has been about $2.4 million paid out.
“The turnaround time on those applications is really fast so we’re encouraging people to get their paperwork in ASAP,” said Popham.
