Last week, the House of Commons agriculture committee made a rare trip across the Prairies to hear farmers first hand. Western Producer reporters Mary MacArthur, Sean Pratt and Ed White covered hearings in Olds, Alta., Saskatoon and Gimli, Man. More stories appear on page 84.
Prairie farmers may not always like the program they have and opinions on how to improve it run the gamut, but they are adamant that their key risk management tool is a functioning, affordable crop or production insurance program.
MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee heard that message loud and clear as they travelled across Western Canada last week holding public hearings on the next generation of farm supports.
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The tour started in the British Columbia interior, touched down in Olds, Alta., Saskatoon and finally Gimli, Man., before heading to Atlantic Canada this week.
Affordability was a key concern, voiced first at Olds by Western Canadian Wheat Growers vice-president Stephen Vandervalk.
“The wheat growers would like to see a greater share of federal farm support funding devoted to making crop insurance more affordable,” he told MPs on the second stop of their four-meeting tour April 17.
The next day in Saskatoon, Kinistino canola producer Wayne Bacon, president of the Canadian Canola Growers Association, picked up the theme.
“There is a disturbing trend in production insurance,” he said. “Premiums continue to rise and coverage levels continue to fall. This needs to be addressed to ensure our insurance program remains a viable risk management tool for farmers.”
In Gimli, discussion turned to whether the program model should be extended to the livestock and horticultural sectors as promised by governments when they stopped talking about crop insurance and started referring to broader production insurance.
Neil Hamilton, president of the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp. that delivers support programs for the Manitoba government, said the talk of coverage for livestock comes from a sense that there is an inequity of programs.
“Reality is through the programs we offer. Grain producers get price insurance and production insurance,” he told MPs. “And cattle producers, hog producers largely get price insurance through CAIS (the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program) so there’s a perceived inequity in terms of the subsidies.”
Hamilton expressed some doubts about whether the insurance model developed for weather-dependent crops can be remodelled easily for a management-dependent livestock sector.
“We always want to relate losses to particular perils, we always want to say drought caused this loss,” he said. “The problem, I think, in livestock is a lot of it is very hard to determine what exactly caused not achieving a certain level of production. I think it’s feasible. I think the provinces will try it on a pilot basis.”
He said while insurance should remain voluntary, farmers should understand they may not receive coverage under other programs for losses that could have been covered by insurance.
“You’re expected to take it if you want it,” said Hamilton. “If you don’t take it, don’t expect to be paid under CAIS or some other program for a loss you could have insured yourself for.”
Humboldt grain farmer Kenton Possberg complained at the Saskatoon hearing that if his farm was in Alberta rather than Saskatchewan, he would have received almost $750,000 in additional crop and revenue insurance through the years 2003-06.
He said crop insurance programs now operated by the provinces should be taken over by the federal government as a national program with national standards. “It is a simple fix and it is something that will eliminate the need for these ad hoc programs.”
The next day in Gimli, Manitoba MP and committee chair James Bezan, who once worked for the Manitoba Crop Insurance Corp., raised the issue of national standards to eliminate provincial disparities.
The idea received only lukewarm support from representatives of potato, canola, corn and pulse growers.
Regional rules for crop insurance are necessary because of different growing seasons and different conditions in the provinces.
