As agriculture ministers were expected to gather in Whitehorse this week to debate substantial cuts to farm support programs, federal minster Gerry Ritz says farmer input was key to the process.
Many farm leaders beg to differ.
Ministers are set to approve significant cuts to AgriStability coverage this week as part of the next five-year agriculture policy framework but farm organizations only began to learn details of proposed changes in recent months or weeks.
But even as farm leaders complained that they largely were excluded from discussions about program reform proposals that ministers have been discussing for two years, Ritz issued a statement last week saying advice has been key to the discussions.
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“I wish to extend my thanks to the industry for inputting into the policy development over the past two years and throughout the last summer,” Ritz said. “Building on these and what industry told (federal and provincial) governments directly, the aim is to balance the risk between governments and producers while ensuring we are investing strategically to promote sector competitiveness.”
On the table at Whitehorse are proposals to lower the trigger point for AgriStability payments that would potentially reduce program payments by close to $2 billion over five years. The meetings are slated to start Sept. 12 after Western Producer deadlines for this issue.
Some of the savings will be shifted to research and innovation programs but much of the money could be used on deficit reduction.
Last week, farm leaders continued to complain that the government idea of consultation was not inclusive.
Ontario Federation of Agriculture vice-president Debra Pretty-Straathof, an eastern Ontario dairy farmer, said Sept. 4 that farm organizations were not included in the discussions nor asked to comment on the potential impact of program change on their members.
“They talk about all their consultation but who were they talking to?” she asked. “It wasn’t us.”
Grain Growers of Canada president Stephen Vandervalk wrote in a letter to prime minister Stephen Harper Sept. 6 that cuts in farm support funding could be short-sighted and lacking in producer advice.
“While at least in the short term our margins are such that support will not be needed by many farmers, we are concerned that without sufficient producer input and direction, any downturn in prices or a widespread crop failure will take us back to the days of emergency farm aid,” he wrote to Harper and Conservative MPs.
With word spreading among farmers about potential farm program cuts, federal Conservative MPs and provincial governments scrambled in the past several weeks to hold consultations with farmers about what they want in a new five-year farm program deal.
Typically, the meetings did not include any detail about what options are on the table in Whitehorse.
However, a consultation Sept. 4 in Winnipeg by provincial agriculture minister Ron Kostyshyn offered some support for the view that ministers are on the right track to reduce emphasis on business risk management support programs.
Cam Dahl, general manager of the Manitoba Cattle Producers’ Association, said in an interview that even with information about impending BRM cuts, most representatives of commodity groups at the meeting did not target that as a key concern.
“I was a bit surprised that there wasn’t a bigger emphasis on preserving existing BRM levels,” he said in an interview. “The main overall point was support for more investment in research and less on preserving existing farm support program levels.”
