More than 350 Peace River area farmers turned off their tractors to come to a series of meetings on how to apply for the Alberta government’s disaster relief money.
“We had good response,” said Ken Moholitny, director of central planning support with Alberta Agriculture.
Most of the farmers were pleased the group of provincial officials were touring the hardest-hit areas to explain the Farm Income Disaster Program, he said.
The Peace country was hit with a double whammy as many producers did not get their crop harvested last fall or this spring, which delayed or prevented them from seeding this spring.
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The farmers wanted to know if the program would kick in when they had two back-to-back low-income years because of poor weather.
They may be eligible for the program if the margin between their agricultural income and expenses suffers more than a 30 percent drop in one year compared with the previous three-year average.
Moholitny said based on a series of tests with individual farmers, it looks like the program will kick in even with two poor years in a row.
“It shows it can respond to problems for 1995 and a potential for 1996,” he said.
Another reason for the good turnout is few farmers in the area carry provincial crop insurance.
Bill Cornwall, crop insurance manager for the Peace River area, said farmers have been unwilling to buy crop insurance when the payout for a claim was much lower than the crop was worth.
“There was optimism about farm commodity prices and they felt they didn’t need it,” he said, estimating only about one-quarter of the farmers in the area bought crop insurance this year, up from last year’s 15 to 20 percent.
Cornwall said changes to the program have attracted some farmers back to the program.
No ad hoc programs
Provincial agriculture minister Ed Stelmach has said there will no longer be any government ad hoc programs for farmers. If farmers have a disaster it must be covered through crop insurance or the FIDP program.
Almost 5,000 farmers received FIDP payments for the 1995 tax year. Most came from Vermilion, Barr-head and Red Deer. They were paid $63.3 million for an average payout of $12,800.
Applications for the 1996 tax year must be postmarked by July 31. So far the department has received about 600 applications, but Moholitny expects most are still to arrive.
Information meetings continue in northern Alberta this week.
