The head of Canada’s largest farm lobby says producers fear farm support budget cuts as agriculture ministers near the end of negotiations on the next five-year farm program framework.
Ron Bonnett, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, said he worries strong farmgate prices will lead ministers to cut farm support programs.
He said the farm industry has largely been kept in the dark about negotiation implications.
“We have been getting signals from some of our provincial members that ministers see this as a chance to reduce farmer access to business risk management programs, and we would object to that,” he said from his northern Ontario farm.
Read Also
August rain welcome, but offered limited relief
Increased precipitation in August aids farmers prior to harvest in southern prairies of Canada.
“Farmers need assurance of effective risk management programs, and if cuts come and then prices or incomes fall, we could end up trying to fix something in two years when it is needed.”
Bonnett complained about a “lack of information provided to industry in relation to the ongoing agricultural ministers’ negotiations.”
Federal and provincial agriculture ministers plan to finish negotiations on the next five-year Growing Forward framework when they meet in Whitehorse in early September.
It is scheduled to take effect April 1.
Although farm support programs such as AgriStability and AgriInvest are required by law to respond to farm demand rather than government budgets, there have been clear signals from Ottawa that the recent boom in farm receipts should lead to more of an emphasis on science, innovation and other non-farm financial support programs in the next five-year plan.
Bonnett said signals from the provinces indicate that it means a change in the program eligibility rules to make it more difficult to trigger payments.
While federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz has denied that, former Ontario agriculture minister Carol Mitchell refused last year during a minister’s meeting in New Brunswick to sign a communiqué on Growing Forward Two because she said it would provide less support to Ontario farmers due to proposed eligibility rule changes.
Bonnett said suggestions about reducing farm support levels have not been confirmed, and it is troubling that little information about the impact of political negotiations on farm supports is being made available.
“While the CFA and its members recognize the need for fiscal austerity in these difficult financial times, cuts to BRM (business risk management) programming could result in an agriculture that is dangerously exposed to risks outside the control of farm management practices and thereby compromise its competitiveness moving forward,” he said in a CFA statement on the issue.
Bonnett said there have been “behind the scenes stories” of impending cuts that will be rolled into the new program rules set out in the next generation of farm programs.
