Canadian Federation of Agriculture leaders are looking at whether government business risk management programs should be revamped to give commercial farmers more program options.
President Ron Bonnett said the CFA board has begun to discuss long-term changes required to make business risk management programs more effective for larger farmers trying to make a majority of their living from the operation.
“There is a recognition that there are holes in the current programs,” Bonnett said.
“Commercial farmers need more tools. We talked about the possibility of modifications that would allow hedging of input costs, for example. That is not possible now.”
Read Also
Final crop reports show strong yields, quality
Crops yielded above average across the Prairies this year, and quality is generally average to above-average.
George Morris Centre analyst Al Mussell recently issued a report that argued government business risk management programs should be targeted at commercial farmers while smaller farmers who mainly make most of their income off the farm should benefit from environmental payments.
Bonnett said CFA board members did not create as clear a dividing line between smaller and larger farmers when they met last week.
“But it is fair to say that we recognize that the current suite of programs does not always work for commercial farmers as well as they might so I think a little bit of targeting in future programs might be called for,” he said.
Federation leaders were in Ottawa to celebrate the CFA’s 75th birthday, and the keynote event was an Oct. 20 banquet that featured former CFA presidents, several former agriculture ministers and MPs from all parties.
However, in many ways the 75th anniversary week was also a normal
RON BONNETT CANADIAN FEDERATION OF AGRICULTURE
work week for farm leaders.
They lobbied MPs for improvements to farm risk management programs, and Bonnett appeared before the House of Commons finance committee Oct. 21 to offer CFA ideas for the 2011 federal budget.
He asked for short-term changes to Growing Forward risk management programs, more coverage of losses and a federal commitment to invest $28 million more each year for 10 years in basic Agriculture Canada research funding.
