The federal government has unveiled plans to add $367 million to agriculture spending in this fiscal year.
The spending includes $157.5 million to continue funding non-business risk management programs such as environmental, food safety and science plans until new federal-provincial agreements are signed to continue the programs for five years.
Funding for the non-BRM programs in place since 2003 expired March 31 without political agreement on the details of their replacements.
Federal and provincial agriculture ministers agreed to continue the old programs for up to a year while details of the new programs are worked out.
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The ministers will try to complete that work when they meet in Quebec City in July.
The planned spending also includes almost $12 million as the first step to creating a national disaster program for farmers that was promised as part of the Growing Forward agreement. Federal and provincial ministers have agreed to a disaster program in principle but it has not yet been created because details of definitions and cost sharing are still being worked out.
The request for additional spending authority was part of $4.1 billion in supplementary government-wide spending plans for the 2008-09 fiscal year tabled in Parliament.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency will receive $43 million in additional funding, including $18.2 million “to support the extension of sunsetting elements of the BSE program” as well as more than $5.5 million for capital expenditures.
The Canadian Grain Commission will receive $26.5 million to fill the funding gap created by the fact that CGC fees, frozen for the past decade, do not raise enough money to cover commission costs.
According to the plan presented to Parliament, government interim funding for non-BRM programs includes:
- $93.3 million to fund continuation of the popular farm environmental plan program.
- $26 million for science and research projects.
- $17 million for food safety programs including on-farm food safety and traceability programs.
- $5.67 million for rural and co-operative development.
- $5.4 million to fund renewal programs, including a grant to the Canadian Farm Business Management Council and funding for business management advisory councils.
The additional money will raise the Agriculture Canada budget to $3.5 billion for the year.
The total likely will move toward $4 billion when the government reports to Parliament later this year, as it does every year, that other unanticipated costs have been incurred.
