Clay Serby will have to sign on to the national farm program by the end of the month or risk losing federal support for Saskatchewan producers.
But he isn’t happy about it.
The provincial agriculture minister told reporters Dec. 12 that he was disappointed his Ontario counterpart signed the agricultural policy framework a day earlier.
The signature from Steve Peters gave outgoing federal minister Lyle Vanclief the support he needed to enact the program.
Serby said he will have to sign the deal without any assurance of the amendments he wanted.
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The provinces that have already signed implementation agreements must now approve the inclusion of negative margins and an increase to the cap on payments to individual operations to $3 million from $975,000.
The changes may be too rich for some provinces, but Serby said if his colleagues agree to them, then Saskatchewan and Ontario will have held out to benefit all producers.
“If they don’t sign, then my position will be the timing is most inappropriate,” he said of Peters’ decision to sign.
“Why is it that you would sign an agreement, Mr. Ontario, when you have a minister that will be invisible within 24 hours, when you have an opportunity to, I think, negotiate a better deal with somebody who is acquaint(ed) with national agricultural policy, who wrote a report, who is Ontario-based as well?”
Serby was referring to Vanclief’s departure and the appointment of Bob Speller as his replacement.
He has already sent a letter to Speller outlining the three amendments he still hopes to get on the table when ministers meet later this winter:
- Put money for trade injury into the APF.
- Make sure extra money is available outside of the APF for catastrophic events such as BSE.
- Help young farmers who are beginning to farm or who are taking over family farms.
Serby will consult with one of his farmer advisory groups this week about signing on, but acknowledged he will have to sign to make sure producers have access to federal crop insurance funds.
