With only five months left until current safety net agreements expire,
Manitoba farmers are wondering if they might get rushed into accepting
a new agreement that fails to meet their needs.
Keystone Agricultural Producers plans to press government for
assurances that funding for existing safety nets will remain in place
for another year if agreement on what the new programs should look like
cannot be reached by the end of March.
KAP doesn’t want a new package cobbled together for the sake of meeting
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a March 31 deadline, if the result would be programs laced with
shortcomings for farmers.
“The most important thing is to make sure the programs are right,” said
KAP president Weldon Newton.
“It’s a huge challenge. There’s no question about that. We haven’t got
a whole lot of time left.”
KAP has put forward a position paper that outlines what it wants new
programs to look like as part of the agricultural policy framework
announced by the federal government in June.
The position paper was endorsed by KAP members at a general council
meeting Oct. 24 in Brandon.
The Manitoba general farm group wants the Net Income Stabilization
Account improved, although its members worry that the opposite may
happen if producer groups are not vigilant.
The position paper offers numerous ideas on how NISA can be enhanced,
including the addition of a third fund referred to as a disaster
component to protect farmers from sudden declines in income.
The hope is to have that component funded by government using money
previously allocated to the Canadian Farm Income Program. The money in
that third fund could not be withdrawn by a retiring farmer, but could
possibly be carried forward to the person taking over the farm.
KAP also suggests the current three percent bonus be eliminated and the
money instead used by governments toward making a six percent
contribution into producers’ NISA accounts.
In Western Canada, that would be an increase from the current three
percent government contribution based on eligible net sales.
“We want to build on that program, not tear all the key components out
of it,” Newton said.
Glen Franklin, a producer from Deloraine, Man., said changes to NISA
need to assist young and beginning farmers. Many new farmers need
off-farm jobs to get themselves established, but they have difficulty
getting into NISA because of the off-farm income.
“We’ve got to address that right now,” said Franklin.
As for other programs, KAP wants to see crop insurance improved under
what is being referred to as a production insurance program. Livestock
and crops would both be covered.
The farm group wants adequate funds allocated to be sure producers
could get the production insurance at affordable costs. KAP’s position
paper calls for a broad range of risks to be covered, including loss of
production caused by non-reportable diseases such as salmonella and E.
coli, or extreme weather conditions that harm livestock performance.
KAP also is lobbying for business interruption insurance, to cover
situations like accidental contamination on farms, reportable diseases,
and food safety and environmental liability issues. The federal
government has said it would fund the development of such a program,
but Ottawa would want it delivered by private industry.
“There is some available now but it’s very expensive and covers a
narrow range of peril,” Newton said.
During the general council meeting last week, there was an emphasis on
developing programs that cannot be attacked by trading partners. Cattle
producers were among those particularly concerned about that issue.
“We’ve still got the scars from the last trade action,” said Scott
Hunt, a producer from Hartney, Man., and a director with the Manitoba
Cattle Producers Association.
Hunt was referring to a trade action in the late 1990s that was sparked
by an American cattle producers’ group concerned about the volume of
Canadian cattle exported into the United States. Canada won in the end,
but it cost the industry millions of dollars to help defend against the
trade action.
“We want to be sure we don’t raise undue trade risks by making these
changes,” said Newton.
“We want to make them as trade-friendly as we can.”
