Ontario farm groups urge politicians to act now to change farm safety nets

Monday, July 5, 2010

by SUSAN MANN

Federal and provincial agriculture ministers must act now and implement changes to the national farm safety net program, AgriStability, an Ontario farmer leader says.

That’s also the message the Ontario Agricultural Sustainability Coalition gave to Ontario Agriculture Minister Carol Mitchell before she headed off to attend the Federal, Provincial, Territorial Agriculture Ministers’ meeting in Saskatoon July 7 and 8.

Ontario Cattlemen’s Association president Curtis Royal says “we just hope they don’t come out with basically what they’ve come out with the last two or three times.”

After the agriculture ministers’ meeting last summer in Niagara-on-the-Lake and also the one Feb. 5 in Toronto, the politicians said they’d hold consultations with farmers. “To come back out with something similar like that and no action is basically unacceptable to us here in Ontario,” Royal says.

In a written statement, the Coalition says it is recommending changes to AgriStability that will provide a much needed infusion of funds to Ontario’s cash-strapped farm businesses. It is also proposing a comprehensive business risk management program based on cost-of-production for non supply-managed commodities. The agricultural industry has already started working out some details on this with OMAFRA staff; the Coalition wants the federal government to help develop the details too.

If there isn’t any progress at the meeting, Ontario should be prepared to announce the province will fund at least 40 per cent of the proposed changes to AgriStability retroactive to 2008, the Coalition says.

Mitchell says the business risk management program, including proposed changes to AgriStability, is one of her top issues “and for my stakeholders that’s an issue they want to see dealt with.”

But Ontario is just one province at the meeting table. “What I take forward are the concerns from my ag community and what we see our ag community needs to move into the future.”

As for the Coalition’s request for the province to fund at least 40 per cent of the proposed changes to AgriStability if there isn’t any progress at the meeting, Mitchell says she didn’t want to predict the outcome of discussions at the table. “We’ll see where we land at the end of (the meeting).”

In its written statement, the Coalition says farmers have been patient but if there isn’t any progress at the meeting “farmers will be very vocal in expressing their discontent.”

Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Bette Jean Crews says their response will depend on the outcome of the meeting. But “the only thing that we don’t want to do is one huge demonstration and then nothing else.”

Crews says AgriStability “wasn’t designed to meet all of the multitude of crises that we’ve had in the last few years, even in the last decade.”

A national survey shows a majority of Canadian farmers are dissatisfied with the current AgriStability program, it says in an Ontario Federation press release.

Brian Gilroy, chair of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association, says AgriStability doesn’t do the job farmers need it to do. And he’s hoping federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz will acknowledge the program isn’t working. “For the minister to continue to say that things are fine is, in my opinion, inappropriate.”

He also hopes negotiations can begin to provide safety net programs that address today’s needs.

Crews says the Coalition’s proposed changes will cost an estimated $100 million a year in Ontario and $300 to $330 million annually across Canada. The Coalition is asking for the changes to be made retroactive to 2008 because that’s when AgriStability was introduced.

Ontario Pork chair Wilma Jeffray says making improvements to AgriStability retroactive to 2008 can be done at the agriculture ministers’ meeting because “the people who make those decisions are all sitting together. We see that as something that can be done immediately to put some immediate relief into the farm community because the need is so great.”

Implementing the changes can’t wait until the current agricultural policy framework expires in 2013, she adds. BF