Manitoba farmers have been asking government for years to adjust or re-construct risk management tools because existing programs are not working for them.
That message hasn’t been particularly effective, but a new approach may gain more traction.
Doug Chorney, former Keystone Agricultural Producers president, said farmers and producer groups are now talking about government investment in flood and drought prevention rather than financial relief following a disaster.
Chorney is a member of a Manitoba task force reviewing agricultural business risk management programs such as provincial crop insurance and federal initiatives like Agri-Stability.
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The task force is holding public forums in Manitoba this month to hear directly from producers to find out what isn’t working and why it doesn’t work and hear proposals for alternate solutions.
Provincial agriculture minister Ron Kostyshyn, who created the task force in January, said the status quo is no longer acceptable. Overland flooding and extreme rain devastated millions of acres of Manitoba cropland in 2011 and 2014.
“It’s becoming clear that existing business risk management programs … can’t adequately meet farmers’ recovery needs,” he said.
Bill Uruski, Manitoba Turkey Producers chair and a farmer from the Interlake region, is leading the task force.
Task force members met with commodity groups and farm organizations before the public forums were held. Many of those discussions focused on infrastructure and prevention rather than tinkering with financial support programs.
“Not all solutions will probably be found in an insurance … or government support model,” Chorney said at a KAP meeting in Brandon July 8.
“We’ve talked about different approaches beyond insurance … specifically tile drainage and other water management infrastructure that could be used.”
KAP president Dan Mazier said it’s encouraging that the task force is exploring all options because fresh thinking is required.
“Part of the task force’s (role) is discovering what is new…. How are we going to approach this (differently) in the future?”
Chorney said the approach is comparable to Manitoba’s investment in the Red River Valley. The provincial and federal governments spent hundreds of millions of dollars following the flood of 1997 to protect southern Manitoba and Winnipeg from future flooding.
He said governments may need to follow a similar model to mitigate flood and drought risk in agriculture.
“When we have a big claim event in crop insurance or the Agri-Recovery program payout, the public money is being invested to treat the symptoms of a problem. We would be much better off … to invest in preventive solutions to the problem instead of continually treating the symptoms.”
