The decision to make cash advances available a couple of weeks earlier than usual has put almost $50 million into grain growers’ pockets this fall.
By the end of last week, the Canadian Wheat Board had issued advances to 2,500 farmers totaling $44 million.
That represents a little under 10 percent of the total amount expected to be advanced to prairie farmers this crop year for sales of wheat, durum and barley.
Several million more dollars have been issued to growers of non-board crops, although exact numbers were not available.
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The federal government decided to make advances available earlier this year in response to requests from farm organizations that said low prices and slow grain movement had hurt farmers’ cash flow.
Ed Thomas, who runs the cash advance program for the CWB, said while money will be advanced earlier than usual, the total demand will likely be similar to last year.
“Considering the size of the harvest and delivery opportunities that will likely be available to farmers, assuming it will be comparable to last year, we’re probably looking at the same dollar value, somewhere around $500 or $600 million,” he said.
Millions in defaults
In 1997-98 the board issued 25,500 advances for $537 million. As of last week, 3,700 producers had defaulted on the advances, representing $35 million.
Charlie Froebe, of the Canadian Canola Growers Association, said he expects the demand for advances for canola, flaxseed, rye and oats will equal or surpass last year, when about 2,000 advances were issued for about $52 million.
“All the early indication is there will be good, strong demand this year,” he said in an interview from the association’s office in Portage la Prairie, Man. “We’ll certainly match last year and by the look of it possibly surpass it. There’s a lot of canola out there.”
About 85 percent of the non-board advances are for canola and about 10 percent for flax, with the rest split among oats and rye.
Froebe said the early start to this year’s program has made for an extremely busy couple of weeks for the canola association staff. The year-end for 1997-98 came on Sept. 14, so the staff had to be wrapping up the books for last year at the same time as new advances began pouring in.
