As federal and provincial agriculture ministers discuss sharp farm income support cuts in a five-year deal to be signed in September, farmers are demanding a greater say in the process.
Support levels under AgriStability are on the table.
“I think they are doing this behind the scenes and then want to present a package to us once it is negotiated,” Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Ron Bonnett said in a July 16 interview.
“This is being driven by government budget considerations and nothing else and we have had no opportunity to analyze the consequences for farmers.”
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He said if there are significant cuts to farm support levels, “I can see farmers opting out and then we would get back to the good old days when you see governments under pressure to pony up when farm incomes drop.”
Grain Growers of Canada, generally supportive of the federal government conservative approach to farm policy, also has objected.
“GGC is in favour of maintaining current agreed-upon support levels for the AgriStability program and are strongly opposed to any arbitrary cuts,” president Stephen Vandervalk wrote in a July 12 letter to federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz.
“If changes are to be considered, we request that you engage farm groups like ours prior to decisions being made.”
Liberal agriculture critic Frank Valeriote said in a July 16 interview the government is pursuing a globalization and market agenda that perhaps can be sold during high commodity prices but will devastate farmers when markets turn down in future.
“This is a secretive government with an agenda it is not willing to share with farmers and it will hurt them,” he said from Guelph. “It really is the survival of the fittest.”
When they meet in Whitehorse in September to develop the next five-year Growing Forward 2 agreement, federal and provincial ministers will be focusing on a federal proposal that the AgriStability trigger for compensation claims be reduced from 85 percent of historical income to 70 percent.
Provincial sources say that option is likely to be adopted despite some provincial resistance. The initial federal proposal was that the compensation trigger be dropped to 50 percent but it was rejected at an unannounced ministers’ meeting in Toronto July 6.
The federal government has told provinces a 70 percent trigger could reduce AgriStability payments by as much as $411 million per year over five years, saving government treasuries more than $2 billion — $1.3 billion for Ottawa.
An unknown part of the negotiation is what changes are proposed for other programs in the business risk management package including AgriInvest and emergency aid under AgriRecovery.
Farm leaders say they are frustrated at the lack of consultation and information for industry during a negotiation that began more than two years ago.
“We really have been on the outside looking in and we are the most affected,” said Bonnett.
Vandervalk said in his letter to Ritz that there have been several years of consultations that did not prepare farmers for what may be coming.
“Changing the AgriStability program by arbitrarily decreasing support at this point in time would in effect negate (Agriculture Canada’s) lengthy ongoing consultations to date,” he wrote.
