Behind the Lines - February 2010

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

This issue's cover story focuses on producers who want to stay in pork farming by re-financing and, in particular, reports their concerns about the federal government's Hog Industry Loan Loss Reserve Program (HILLRP), announced last October.

Anecdotal reports point to a slow uptake of this program, which is supposed to backstop lenders who provide credit to risky accounts. One measure of movement is the rate of the payback of emergency advances from ACC Farmers Financial, which had channelled emergency advance payments to pork producers. Those advances must be paid back by producers enrolling in the HILLRP.

Don LeDrew, ACC Farmers Financial president and chief operating officer, says about 650 pork producers have taken advantage of the emergency advance program, which provided cash-strapped producers with $100,000 interest free for a time and as much as $300,000 more at a low interest rate. LeDrew stresses that re-financing is between lenders such as Farm Credit Canada, a bank or a credit union and the producer.

LeDrew says that, between early October of last year, when HILLRP was announced, and early January, ACC received 25-30 applications. On the morning of Jan. 7, there were five new applications on his desk. "I can't guess how many more we will get," he says. BP 

ROBERT IRWIN