The Manitoba government isn’t backing away from supporting better saturation insurance, environmental farm plans and tax breaks for protecting sensitive land.
That’s good news, said Keystone Agricultural Producers president Dan Mazier, who was pleasantly surprised to see the government release its Agriculture Risk Management Review Task Force report on the eve of the provincial election news blackout period.
“I applaud (agriculture) minister (Ron Kostyshyn) for allowing these to come out,” said Mazier, noting it would have been easy for the government to punt the report past the spring election. “Now we can take its ideas to all the parties.”
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The report makes 25 recommendations, which can be found on the Manitoba government’s website.
Mazier said he was pleased to see support for the developing excess moisture insurance system, but he wanted to see more detail and also ensure that it helps farmers without treating them like they caused the flooding and saturation problems they experience.
“They mention it. They say they want to make it an affordable program, but they don’t put any numbers to it,” said Mazier.
Farmers don’t like the idea of a big deductible to cover something that isn’t their fault.
“It’s hurting the people who need it the most,” he said. “It needs to be addressed.”
KAP is also happy to see support in the report for compensating farmers for protecting sensitive land.
“That’s been a long-time call from KAP and that’s good to see,” he said.
The government set up the task force not to focus on farm risk management in general but on the specific risks that climate change might mean to farmers.
It comprised a number of Manitoba agricultural heavyweights, including former KAP president Doug Chorney, University of Manitoba agricultural economist Derek Brewin and Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp. chair Frieda Krpan, and was chaired by 1980s NDP agriculture minister Bill Uruski.
Mazier said he was pleased with the commitment of the task force in going to all parts of the province to hear from farmers and the comprehensiveness of its final report.
