Agriculture has resumed its rightful place near the top of the provincial priority list, Saskatchewan farm leaders said after last week’s budget that included a 58 percent increase in farm spending.
The agriculture ministry’s spending allocation of $483.4 million is $177.5 million more than last year. The increase is the third-highest among ministries this year.
The majority of the money, 87 percent, is for business risk management programs, including AgriStability, AgriInvest and crop insurance.
“We’re building on our promise to improve support programs for farmers and ranchers (by allocating) over 100 million new dollars to fulfill our promise to fully fund our share of the AgriStability and AgriInvest programs, and another $25 million to fulfill our commitment to improve crop insurance for farmers,” finance minister Rod Gantefoer said during his March 18 budget address.
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Agriculture critic Pat Atkinson said the increase wasn’t a surprise.
“I knew that they had to fund AgriStability and AgriInvest.”
The government has always said it would fully fund its commitments under federal-provincial programs and has already unveiled its crop insurance program for 2009.
The budget includes $22 million to relocate and deliver AgriStability, which Atkinson said is much higher than the $9 million previously suggested.
Agriculture minister Bob Bjornerud said the program is cost-shared with Ottawa, but the province must show it as a full expense and then be reimbursed.
“That really makes our budget in a way a deceptive number, but I have no choice,” he said.
Other expenditures include $5 million for non-business risk management programs under Growing Forward and $14 million for research projects. Atkinson said she was surprised funding for research had not been increased.
Premier Brad Wall had recently told delegates to the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities that extra money would be available to control gophers, wild boars, coyotes, black flies, rats and other pests. The pest control program is worth $4 million.
The budget also shows a $20 million expense for the crown land sale incentive program announced last fall.
The Farm and Ranch Infrastructure Water program introduced last year has been expanded from the southwest to include the entire province.
“I thought it was a very positive budget for rural Saskatchewan and agriculture,” said Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan president Greg Marshall.
“The minister did a good job of listening to what we were saying. All of the things that we had put on our wish list were addressed.”
SARM president David Marit said the government is recognizing agricultural issues.
“What this budget did was put agriculture back on the list in Saskatchewan,” added Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association vice-president Mark Elford.
“It had gotten to where agriculture wasn’t really a very high priority and we’re glad to see that Saskatchewan is saying that agriculture is important to this province.”
The National Farmers Union issued a news release questioning the wisdom of putting the bulk of the agricultural budget into programs that haven’t worked in the past.
Bjornerud said he would continue to work with the federal government to make the programs more effective.
“I certainly hope these dollars translate into payments.”
