Saskatchewan livestock producers could begin enrolling in a new western Canadian price insurance program by February.
Cattle industry leaders last week said the announcement has been a long time coming.
The hog industry was less enthusiastic, saying it would prefer a hedging program to price insurance.
Agriculture minister Lyle Stewart said he expects details to be available soon.
The voluntary program will include producers in the four western provinces, and the federal government is paying for some administration costs. As a result, Stewart said formal announcements must wait until all parties are ready.
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However, the program will be virtually identical to the one that Alberta has had since 2009, he said.
“Alberta has consented to administer the program,” he said.
“Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp. will be the boots on the ground in Saskatchewan for signing up producers and so on.”
He said Ottawa will pay 60 percent of the administration costs, and the provinces will pay the remainder.
“We’re working out a deal that (Ottawa) will backstop any shortfalls to the program through a loan to the program, which producers would pay back over time through their premiums,” Stewart added.
Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association chair Mark Elford said the announcement was good news and better late than never. The sector has been asking for a price insurance program for several years.
“We really wanted this for a long time, especially as calves get to be more expensive there’s a lot more risk for the feeders,” Elford said.
He said producers at an SCA district meeting in Manitou Beach the night before the throne speech in which the program was announced, had asked why SCA wasn’t “hammering on that one.”
“We’re at quite a disadvantage here trying to grow an industry next door,” said one producer.
Elford told the meeting the process wasn’t moving as fast as he wanted, but the work was being done.
Both he and Harold Martens, president of the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association, said Alberta producers have benefitted from having the insurance program.
“Last year when XL Beef was down, it paid in Alberta significantly and we are using that as kind of a benchmark, so that when you have glitches in the marketing system based on something that is out of the control of producers, then you can look at an offset in the livestock industry and that’s a good thing,” Martens said.
Elford said there is good demand for cattle, but Saskatchewan buyers have been cautious. This program is bankable and will offer more certainty to lenders, he added.
“We want people to be aggressively buying, and so if you’re a smaller feeder operator and you’re doing your banking in Saskatchewan, you don’t have that program to take to the bank like your counterpart in Alberta,” he said.
“This will equalize things out for that sector as well.”
Opposition agriculture critic Cathy Sproule said she was waiting to see the details but was pleased that a program is coming.
Stewart said he hoped the program would be in place in time to help producers who are worried about how country-of-origin labelling in the United States will affect prices.
Martens said continued work on that file is also important.
He said prices on 600 pound steers from Texas to Nebraska are 20 cents higher than in Saskatchewan.
“They can’t even come up here to get the cattle to offset that cost to them, so we’re looking at some opportunity to move our livestock into that area,” Martens said.
