Payments under the federal grains and oilseeds program have been going out steadily since the Conservative government took office in February.
Ellen Funk, spokesperson for the Grains and Oilseeds Producer Payment, or GOPP program, said 89,000 payments worth $472 million had been made across Canada as of May 3.
Saskatchewan farmers account for nearly half the payments and more than half the money; 40,300 farmers received $240 million.
Funk said there have been few complaints about the process, compared to other programs.
“It’s gone quite well,” she said. “We have all the data and it’s a matter of applying a formula.”
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But Shawn Buhr of Lucky Lake, Sask., said his payment was “lost in cyberspace” for nearly three months, despite the fact that he could calculate how much he was due within 10 minutes.
He estimated a payment of $38,230, less a Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization overpayment of about $17,000.
Buhr said he made numerous phone calls before he wrote to agriculture minister Chuck Strahl and Saskatchewan MP David Anderson on April 20 to outline his concerns about the service from the Winnipeg office handling both GOPP and CAIS.
Strahl said Feb. 6 that the payments would be going out within two weeks.
“The lack of action or effort by the CAIS office to settle this file is costing us $8.40 per day in interest,” Buhr wrote. “To put that in perspective, the incompetence of the CAIS office has already cost our farm over $400.”
Buhr finally heard May 1 that someone was looking into what had happened with his cheque. The next day he was notified of the amount and the cheque was to be issued this week.
Buhr said a 60 to 90 day service standard shouldn’t apply to a program like GOPP, which is based on average net sales.
Funk couldn’t comment on Buhr’s specific case and said the service standard for GOPP is 45 days.
She said there are some delays for farmers who just entered the industry in 2005 or who are not CAIS participants. They have to apply to the program by the end of this month.
Meanwhile, Strahl announced last week that collection of CAIS overpayments would be deferred until calculations show how much each farmer is eligible to receive now that CAIS has been changed.
Funk said the deferral is not retroactive, so those who have already repaid their overpayments will not be reimbursed. However, overpayments could be reduced or eliminated, possibly resulting in a payment, once new inventory valuations are applied.