Not an ideal deal | Provincial ag minister unlikely to risk losing federal funding for research, sources say
Saskatchewan will likely sign onto a new federal-provincial business risk management program this week with which it doesn’t necessarily agree.
It has to if it wants to receive funding for non-BRM provincial-specific programming that has yet to be negotiated.
Agriculture ministers are meeting in Whitehorse Sept. 12-14 to sign the next five-year farm support agreement that likely will see cuts to AgriStability.
The changes could save governments close to $2 billion.
However, sources in Saskatchewan say most other provinces and territories have recently agreed to a lesser cut to AgriStability in exchange for reducing contribution levels to AgriInvest.
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federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
Sources said Saskatchewan doesn’t understand why other provinces would agree to cut the popular matching deposit program that producers like and understand. However, if it stands alone it won’t matter.
Changes to federal-provincial-territorial agreements require agreement by seven jurisdictions and at least 50 percent of production value.
“It sounds like everybody’s on side but us,” said one source.
Discussions about lowering the trigger for AgriStability payments from 85 percent of a farmer’s reference margin to 70 percent have been going on for months.
It was one of three options on the table during a July ministerial conference call and the most palatable. The other two options were to eliminate AgriStability and reduce the trigger to 50 percent.
However, British Columbia later proposed that the lower trigger should come with a larger payout. Ottawa had suggested a 60 percent payout at all loss levels compared to the current system of various government support levels for different percentages of loss.
B.C., with the support of other provinces, wants 70 percent government support at all levels.
In exchange, it proposed reducing the annual amount of allowable net sales that farmers can deposit in AgriInvest accounts and be matched by government to one percent from 1.5 percent.
Saskatchewan agriculture minister Lyle Stewart held a hastily arranged conference call with stakeholders after this proposal emerged to update them on the situation.
While he will likely sign a deal that isn’t exactly what the province was looking for, sources said he won’t risk losing the increased funding that will be available for other areas, such as research.
