Government officials and farmers agree that Alberta’s income disaster program isn’t effective for multiple bad crop years.
But government says that’s the way the Farm Income Disaster Program, implemented in 1995, is designed.
“It’s a disaster program. It’s not income stabilization. Don’t expect it to stabilize income year after year. It’s there for your disasters and you can’t really tell me you have a five-year disaster,” said Lloyd Andruchow, head of program development and evaluation for Alberta Agriculture.
However, farmers in the Peace River region have had three consecutive crop failures, according to Kit Fearon, who farms near Bay Tree. So farmers who qualify for the program, which requires incomes to be below 70 percent of a previous three-year average, will still see their incomes drop, she said.
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“The program isn’t a good one for back-to-back payments,” she said, noting the Peace area had two years of excess rain before experiencing drought last year.
She wants to see FIDP, along with the crop insurance program, revamped to better help producers. This year she knows plenty of farmers struggling to put in a crop and thinks it would be even worse if the oil industry didn’t provide off-farm jobs.
Rod Scarlett, executive director for Wild Rose Agricultural Producers, said it’s “crunch time” for many producers who have sold their grain stocks and don’t have extra money for this year.
He thinks FIDP mostly benefits single commodity producers. When a farmer has grain and livestock, certain areas offset the loss in others, he explained. A farmer may see his income continuously dropping, but not enough to qualify.
“Diversifying is not necessarily wrong by any stretch but we have a government that is urging farmers to diversify, to get into all kinds of things, and then we have a program designed to assist those who don’t diversify.”
Fearon wants to see aid programs designed to take different provincial circumstances into account. Scarlett suggests Net Income Stabilization Account payments shouldn’t be tied to FIDP and that a five-year income average should be used for applicants.
But Andruchow said he studied a five-year average, where the highest and lowest year would be dropped, and found the three-year average benefited just as many producers.
He explained the provincial government considers NISA as income to adhere to international trade agreements. As well, he feels both programs are there for income disaster circumstances and farmers shouldn’t be allowed to double dip.
“The intent is for both programs to work in tandem to help a farmer when he’s got a significant drop.”
But there’s no way FIDP, which the federal aid program is based on, works for new farmers, said Phil Schoendorfer.
“The biggest nightmare is getting into it. You’ll get kicked in the teeth like you wouldn’t believe,” he said.
He re-entered farming in the Manning area in the spring of 1997 and didn’t have three previous years on which to base a farm income average. In 1997 his crops were ruined by excess moisture.
“The rains came down, and away flooded my crop. My back teeth floated away with it and so did my energy.”
Last year he didn’t get a profitable crop because of drought and low commodity prices. Still, he couldn’t qualify for FIDP.
“Now I’ve had two disasters in a row and I fall through the cracks.”
He’s concerned new farmers won’t take a chance on the land during these times: “You sit down with a pen and paper and in five minutes you see the numbers don’t work.”
But in the overall farming picture he thinks FIDP is “just a drop in the bucket.” He wants far-reaching changes that would improve grain transportation and commodity prices. As well, he thinks city dwellers need to become more informed about challenges their rural counterparts face. They see their tax dollars going to help farmers without understanding why, he said.
The provincial government continues to review FIDP but thinks it is working well the way it is, said Andruchow, explaining it helps cushion both poor prices and weather conditions. Typically, 4,000 to 5,000 farmers qualify each year and $60 to $65 million is given out.
For the 1998 crop year, the province expects to dole out about $100 million. Most of this money will go to the hog sector, beef producers and grain farmers in northern and eastern Alberta who were affected by drought.
