OTTAWA – Ontario fruit and vegetable growers are trying to create a self-directed income safety net system that could become a model across the country.
It flows out of their frustration with the flaws in crop insurance and the refusal of crop insurance bureaucrats to fix the problems, sector leaders told MPs last week.
“We’re working on a pilot project in Ontario right now but we’d like to see it spread all across Canada,” John Jacques of Thamesville, Ont., president of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association, told the House of Commons agriculture committee June 13.
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The two-year ‘self-directed risk management’ pilot project would be for producers of fresh fruit and vegetables, many of whom do not have a crop insurance plan.
It would see producers create a bank account based on producer contributions of six percent of the value of production, to be matched by equal federal and provincial contributions.
After several years when the fund had been built up, contributions would drop one percentage point for each player. A farmer could draw from the fund if revenues from his basket of products dropped below a five-year average.
‘Isn’t working’
“The existing crop insurance system just plain isn’t working,” Jacques told MPs.
For many fruit and vegetable crops, there are too few producers, too little production, too little historical data or too-high costs to justify a crop insurance program.
This year in Ontario, for example, a late frost killed as much as a quarter of the asparagus crop and there is no crop insurance coverage.
“We are just plain out of luck,” said asparagus-grower Jacques.
He said the cost to government for his scheme, supported by the Canadian Horticultural Council, could be up to $5 million per year.
He said the Ontario government is sympathetic. Ontario minister Noble Villeneuve has promised to raise the issue when agriculture ministers meet in Victoria in July.
Likewise, MPs from all parties on the Commons agriculture committee sounded sympathetic.
Chair Lyle Vanclief said they will be asking crop insurance bureaucrats some “pointed questions” about why rules cannot be changed to benefit minor crop producers.
But Reform MP Jake Hoeppner had a warning for the Ontario fruit and vegetable farmers as they try to create a new safety net program.
“I have bad news for you,” he said. “Your idea is so simple, the Liberal government might not be able to understand it.”
