Canada’s largest national farm lobby has taken on financial obligations of more than half a million dollars to buy a share in a renovated Ottawa building that will become its head office later this year.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has assumed a mortgage debt of $524,000 to buy a portion of a building 13 blocks south of its current head office that sits a stone’s throw from Parliament Hill.
The CFA will share the space with Dairy Farmers of Canada, the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency and the Canadian Hatching Egg Producers, all CFA members.
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The $4.6 million building on the southern edge of Ottawa’s Centertown is being renovated and will be occupied by the farm lobby groups by late summer.
CFA’s monthly mortgage payment will be $3,280 until 2017, less than it now pays in rent.
According to plans presented to the CFA annual meeting Feb. 27, the federation will have a budget of $1.437 million in 2008, funded both by member dues and fee-for-service payments that the federation receives for programs it manages in co-operation with the government.
The CFA is projecting a $124,500 deficit in 2008.
CFA executive director Brigid Rivoire told the annual CFA meeting Feb. 27 that an unexpected 2007 surplus offsets the 2008 deficit and membership fees are frozen this year but after that membership fees will rise by three percent in 2009 and two percent per year after that.
The largest contributors to the CFA are the Ontario Federation of Agriculture with a $251,000 assessment in 2008, Quebec’s Union des Producteurs Agricoles at $181,000 and Agricultural Producers of Saskatchewan at $81,000.
Manitoba’s Keystone Agricultural Producers will pay more than $55,000 this year while Alberta’s Wild Rose Agricultural Producers contributes $10,000, less than the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick agriculture federations.
