Funds halted for Ontario Agricultural Adaptation Council

Friday, April 13, 2012

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

The future looks bleak, and perhaps non-existent, for the 16-year old Ontario Agricultural Adaptation Council. The federal government is putting an axe to the funding program that the council delivered.

“We are still open for business,” confirmed communications officer Nadine Armstrong on Thursday. The council is still accepting project applications, according to an email executive director Terry Thompson sent to the industry this morning.

All projects where funding has been allocated under Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program (CAAP) must be completed by the fall of 2013. Council staff would be winding down operations after that.

All future funding will be dealt out centrally, from Ottawa.

The Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program was launched in 1995. Since then, local councils, such as the Ontario one, with boards made up of appointees from farm organizations and related industries, have evaluated complex applications and made decisions on how to allocate funds. Monies were first advanced through the Canadian Adaptation and Rural Development (CARD) fund. It was replaced by the Canadvance program and when that expired, by CAAP, which runs out in March, 2014. “We were told the program would not be renewed or extended beyond that,” Armstrong says.

Armstrong says to date more than $140 million has been allocated to 562 projects in Ontario.

Armstrong described the federal decision as a “surprise.”  The council staff is assuring clients that business will continue as usual, for now. “We are letting the industry speak for us.”

Neither Adaptation Council chair John Kikkert, a Smithville area chicken and turkey producer, nor board member Gord Surgeoner, president of Ontario Agri-Food Technologies, could be reached for comment Thursday afternoon. BF

Update:

Gord Surgeoner, president, Ontario Agri-Food Technologies, which counts 30 companies, six major agricultural groups and five universities among it s members, says he finds it hard to believe that a central authority in Ottawa will be more efficient at investing in agriculture than a local council.

He says the overhead at the council is less than 10 per cent. “I would love to see what it is in Ottawa.” Surgeoner is also a board member of the Ontario Agricultural Adaptation Council.
“Everyone agrees we need debt reduction,” he says. “Not one person in primary agriculture has made the recommendation that is coming out.”

He adds that surveys have shown a “98 per cent satisfaction rate” among clients of the council, which include farm associations, marketing boards, food processors and even retailers among its clients. BF