Canada’s agriculture ministers seem confident that they can replace the present farm safety net system with a better one at their June 22 meeting.
While the provincial and federal agriculture ministers are still butting heads over the funding formula for disaster relief, most seemed convinced that and other formulas will be in place soon and that farmers will have a much better safety net system in less than a year.
“That probably isn’t going to be an issue,” said Alberta agriculture minister George Groeneveld in an interview after the end of a federal-provincial agriculture ministers meeting in Winnipeg April 12.
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“I think we can solve that one pretty good.”
Ministers generally came out of the meeting delighted to have apparently made progress on erecting programs to replace the present farm safety net.
“We got a lot of work done,” said Manitoba agriculture minister Rosann Wowchuk. “This is a group that wants to work together and come to solutions.”
The new safety net will have a savings account system like the former Net Income Stabilization Account and will be started with $600 million in federal cash, which will be part of the larger CAIS-like component that is funded with 60 percent federal money and 40 percent provincial money.
Disaster relief will cover extraordinary events. Officials are now haggling over how to fund that portion of the program.
There will also continue to be funds dedicated to improving farm products, technology and markets.
Federal minister Chuck Strahl said he believes the NISA-like account will be what farmers have said they want: something “bankable and predictable.”
And it shouldn’t cause the administrative headaches that infuriated many farmers.
“It’ll just be a mathematical equation as opposed to a difficult application process.”
The plan will be self-administered, which Strahl said farmers desire.
British Columbia agriculture minister Pat Bell said simplicity is essential to the success of the new program.
Ministers have told officials “there couldn’t be an incremental burden on producers through a complicated administration program.”
While most of the ministers’ discussions revolved around income stabilization issues, ministers like Wowchuk pushed for environmental programs like the Alternative Land Use Services that she hopes will be part of the safety net’s progressive “fourth pillar.”
She did not have much success, but Strahl said spending on non-stabilizing programs is essential to the future of farming.
“The key to the industry, the key to transforming the industry, is going to be in the non (Business Risk Management) sector,” said Strahl.
“We simply have to spend more effort, time, money, energy on accessing markets, on branding Canada as a place to buy our groceries from internationally, on developing our export markets and our domestic markets, on food quality, environmental issues, on a host of program issues that are not directly related to BRM programming.”
Groeneveld said he was surprised that the meeting was so productive.
“Being my first (ministers) meeting, I was really surprised that everyone was so much on the same page,” he said.
