by SUSAN MANN
If Canada’s agriculture minister isn’t hearing enough that Ontario farmers need market insurance programs to help farmers deal with market risks “we can definitely talk louder and be more visible,” says Bette Jean Crews, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.
Crews’ comment comes on the heels of Gerry Ritz’s announcement last week that the federal government has no intention of fundamentally changing federal provincial agricultural business risk management programs in the short term. Ritz made the comments on Friday following the conclusion of the semi-annual meeting of federal, provincial and territorial agriculture ministers.
The federation is also a member of the Ontario Agriculture Sustainability Coalition, a group of provincial general farm, livestock and commodity organizations that is pushing for the adoption of market insurance programs for Ontario farmers.
Crews says she isn’t concerned by Ritz’s comments because the province’s farmers are asking for enhancements and not significant changes. The improvements the federal government made to current business risk management programs are good, she adds.
But will the province’s farmers have any real input into the design of the next round of programs to replace the current round which expire in 2013? That’s the concern of Henry Stevens, president of the Christian Farmers Federation of Agriculture, another member of the Sustainability Coalition.
Previously, consultations on the federal policy framework have involved inviting selected leaders to a meeting “and basically the government folks have already decided the way it’s going to be,” Stevens explains, adding farmers are there to offer their thoughts but they don’t change anything.
Stevens says the federal government needs to hear more from grass roots farmers, who must be given the opportunity to comment on new program designs, which Ritz has said are in the early stages.
Stevens says he’s not concerned that Ritz won’t commit to substantially changing the current round of business risk management programs.
It’s more important for the Ontario agricultural industry to “get what we need for 2013,” he says. “That’s where our focus needs to be.”
Stevens says the next steps for the coalition is to meet with Ontario Agriculture Minister Carol Mitchell so she can update members and then “we’ll talk together about where we go from here.” But he doesn’t know when those meetings will be held. BF
Comments
ONTARIO FARMERS NEED TO HIRE AN AMERICAN BOOKIE TO START PLACING ODDS ON BETS
A gambling or sports bookie would look at the past performance history of farm leaders and determine the odds that present and decades old farmleaders with organizational CEO's could pull off a coup to get good economic programs for farmers by 2015
By 2014 a biography of past Canada farm programs should show grassroot farmers what the truth and odds of good Canadian farm programs is. By then Farm leaders and farm organizations should have shown evidence of producing results or hollow spin.
It would and should be possible for farmers to figured out by 2014 if our lobby system by farm leaders works or is ineffective. It should be possible to through factual quality farm legislation to make final judgements once and for all
By 2014 the boom bust cycles of grain and livestock producers should have completed an another complete cycle good or bad
By2014 the average age farmer will be 65 , too old and wanting peaceful retirement
Can you imagine paying your risk management premium to a book maker
When I did my RMP risk/reward calculations, I discovered I'd be more than $1,000 out-of-pocket if I was to sign up for the 2010 RMP extension. When, as in my case, there was absolute certainty I was going to lose money, who even needs a bookie?
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Right now Ontario grain farmers have high prices ,livestock farmers need programs to offset high feed cost etc.
Over the last 5 years we farmers have been promised programs by minister Peters. Leonna,and Mitchell and fine words of promise from farm organizations
Were are the progarms?
Could Madame President explain how screeching will help the Minister hear better if he is not listening in the first place?
you are lucky it was not edited.
Let us face facts screeching is the only force the MR and Madam leaders have to get results . The government plays farmers and farm leaders as fools at these meetings. Nice hand shakes pats on the back.
When will leaders learn,better still when will farmers learn that their farmleaders have no chance of gettig results
If food prices continue to rise farmers will be lucky to not have government put price freeze on Raw material food supply
The real issue is how useless, shameless, and missing in action our Ontario rural MP's have been since being elected! They populate and chair the House Agr Committee, hold cabinent positions, and yet have TOTALLY taken Ontario farmers for granted....TWICE!! They, or the Reformers running the CPC, KNOW we will not make them accountable next federal election. We get what we deserve!
Steve Twynstra
Ailsa Craig
When Ritz boasts about all segments of agriculture being prosperous, he seems to be forgetting about all those loan advances made to hog and livestock farmers several years ago, and on which the repayment schedule has been pushed back at least once, with the present due date, I believe, to be this September.
Just this afternoon, one of my tax clients (a livestock farmer) asked me what he should do, or even could do, to repay his fairly-substantial loan - I bit my tongue from saying he should send the bill to the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association for hi-jacking the price of his feed through ethanol, but the truth is that neither he, nor several other of my clients, have any idea at all about how they can ever possibly repay these loans this September.
That's when Ritz, and every member of his rural caucus, are really going to be missing, and certainly not missing-in-action, but just missing.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Steve, Ritz and his minions are trying to worm there way out of this debacle by giving beef farmers 2 yrs and hog farmers 3 yrs, I believe, to pay out these advances. Clients should contact ACCFF to get the full details and work out a payment schedule.
The real frustration is for the few farmers that paid the advances off early and hence forgave the opportunity to use 'free' money for the past few years. And don't even get me going on the cash croppers that weren't able to tap into this same bank of 'free' money....
Steve Twynstra - Ailsa Craig, ON
PS: Yeah, I know, we got ethanol to help boost our incomes...but our local corn price is still not competitive to that just south of the St. Clair river.
PPS: Ritz's ignorance of Ontario agr and his clear mismanagement of FCC's loan approval standards will eventually burst this bubble..I hope we are ready!
Mr. Thompson.....If your livestock client grew his feed like most efficient livestock producers do then the price of corn means nothing.If this guy is a feedlot operater then the high price of stockers could be his downfall. When will you get it through your head that corn farmers don't "owe" livestock farmers CHEAP FEED! We sold cheap corn for far way too long. Go find another topic and stop pitting farmer against farmer!
by OASC and the farm leadership and the political strips out there. The programs were supposed to be something to help NOW - not in 2013 or beyond, when the farmers are older, the industry more consolidated, and the chances of making a difference virtually negligible. Too bad, given how much money the two meat organizations are paying their lobbyiest for nothing, because the Ontario government will never bend, regardless of how many municipalities come on side with those groups. Too much money, too little time, and a futile effort for farmers that need help now and not into the future.
While Ontario Ag Minister, Carol Mitchell, is supportive of RMP for livestock, and, as a back-bencher, was instrumental in getting RMP for Ontario grain farmers, federal Ag Minister, Gerry Ritz, just needs to simply stall and delay until this fall, in order to have "all the marbles".
That's when the Ontario election is to take place, and if as widely predicted, the Liberals lose and a Conservative government under Tim Hudak replaces them, Ritz is home-free because Hudak's provincial Tory government won't ever rock the boat of Ritz's federal Tory government, especially when it comes to RMP.
Therefore, not only will the support for a RMP program for livestock likely disappear with a Tory government in Ontario, the existing RMP program for grains is also likely to be very-much a casualty - regerdless of what Hudak and/or Ernie Hardeman might be saying now.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Just what we need more programs to create more government supported jobs and no money reaching the ones its designed to help. I guess I should send my resume to Agri Corp. Why waste tax dollars creating these programs and why do we as farmers buy in to them? I know I have stopped these programs are a joke and so are the ones running them.
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