by BETTER FARMING STAFF
Bette Jean Crews, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, says the Province’s announcement on Friday that a pilot Risk Management Program for grains and oilseeds will be renewed, is in line with requests for aid for farmers made by Ontario Agricultural Sustainability Coalition.
The coalition had asked that the province launch programs for individual commodities as they were ready, Crews says. Grains and oilseeds growers needed to have their pilot RMP project renewed. The other commodities have to develop numbers for their cost of production formulas using figures that are available from AgriStability.
Crews found Ontario Agriculture Minister Carol Mitchell’s language during announcement encouraging.
Mitchell “did not say, ‘here is a blank cheque for 40 per cent of whatever you tell me,’” says Crews. “She did make a commitment” to work with commodities on programs they are developing.
One of the details of Friday’s announcement is that farmers who started their businesses after January 2008 can apply. “There is an acknowledgment by government that you can’t let anybody fall through the cracks,” Crews says.
An extension of the risk management program for one more year is “what we’ve been lobbying for,” says Leo Guilbeault, chair of Ontario Grains and Oilseeds. “We are thankful to the province for stepping forward.”
According to the ministry, along with new farmers, anyone who participated in the program in 2008 and/or in 2009 is eligible to participate in 2010. Update:
Only new producers who began farming after Jan. 1, 2008, and producers who supported the RMP program in 2008 and 2009 and contributed premiums to the program are eligible for the extended program, says Laura Kobsa, Legislative Affairs and Issues Manager in the office of Agriculture Minister Carol Mitchell.
Guilbeault says he doesn’t know how many farmers are taking advantage of the program. There are 28,000 eligible farmers and more than 80 per cent of those who started after the program was announced in 2007 continued to take part in subsequent years. “As prices stand there should be a payout” for crops sold before the end of June, he says.
There are two different payouts “which reflect the marketing year better than a 12-month period. That’s what makes it work so well,” he says.
The provincial program is “the only game in town right now,” and farmers are still “working on” getting the federal government to commit to taking part as well, Guilbeault says.
Agriculture ministers agreed at their recent annual conference in Saskatchewan last month that the Growing Forward suite of programs, AgriStability and AgriInvest, aren’t doing what they are supposed to. Yet the federal government doesn’t want to change them before a scheduled review in 2013. “Go figure,” Guilbeault says. There’s no reason changes can’t be made before the review in three years, he says. “We are working hard to change their minds to do mid-term adjustments.”
Larry Cowan, owner of Chimo Farms near Melbourne, where Mitchell made the announcement, says he has taken advantage of the RMP program in two out of the last three years. He says the program is worth being enrolled in and “affects the impact the U.S. Farm Bill has on us.”
Cowan, who farms about 3,000 acres of cash crops, compares RMP to crop insurance. He would rather pay the premium and that prices were high enough that he never get a payout. BF
Comments
Larry Cowan 'would rather pay the premium and that prices were high enough that he never get a payout.'
Not me. I would rather we got a respectable price. When prices are low we subsidize the public and then we have to grovel on hands and knees to beg the public to give us back something close to our cost of production.
Why pay a "premium" if you don't want a payout? I think I will keep my premium. At least that is my money in my pocket.
You would think after 7 years of poor progams like rmp the farmleaders would have the talent io know what it takes to get government to move. Treditional lobby and begging is out of date. maybe the united Nations would classiy Ontario grain and livestock farmers as disadvantaged and be low poverty paid souls needing 3rd world status
On or about June 25 the GFO announced the initial payments for 2010 wheat (
This price was largely influenced by the governments comfort level in backing an initial price that had nothing to do with COP, food or feed value, supply and demand or any recognized method of price discovery.
July brought the FPT meetings where the feds in particular again failed to support agriculture and at the same time admitted the programs were not working. Forward 3 wks and the posted bid price doubles, Great! but the buyers, P&H in particular lower basis to a negative number to protect their margins calls.
This is marketing from their perspective but it effectively shifts their financial burden of risk (margin calls) to stay in the market squarely on the producer. At the same time they step out of the market place after limit up/limit down with no posted price.(read as "we are not buying. Our marketing skills still find this too scary") Meanwhile Gillan Weston has not raised the price of a package of cookies 1 cent
As long as Canadian government is not committed to food production with a fair return in an uninhabited, unadulterated market place, farmers can neither take advantage of workable government programs that government admit do not exist, or capture market highs with no bid price.
If the extremes of weather and commodity carryout now prevalent in other parts of the world should prevail here impacting production or future world (grain) shortages, what respect for Canadian production will be shown then or will we start a food ban with noted political players on the list .... Ritz #1
For those not living this and thereby can not understand, please stop speaking for us until the cartoon version that will be available soon.
Sounds like the GFO is incompetent poor management more interested in promoting research over improving true COP with profit for their shareholder farmers . Sooner or later farmers will have no confidence in this GFO
Farmers can only blame themselves for the in action of govt programs, most farmers are more interested in bragging rights of high yields than taking part in the politics of getting profits. Our farm leaders are as useless as a door knob on a tea kettle for profit matters
None of the people in the above article seem prepared to admit that RMP benefits are clawed back by Agristability. Although there's not a perfect relationship, if a farmer qualifies for RMP, there's also an increased chance he/she qualifies for AgriStability.
Therefore, if a farmer is in RMP, there's a financial dis-incentive to be in AgriStability, if for no other reason than the fact that he/she's paying premiums to both programs, but the claw-back provision effectively means he/she's only going to get a benefit from one.
Is there really any Government programs or are programs really self financed by producers? Are these really two parallel insurance policies and if so why are they tied together to be clawed back? Where else are separate insurance policies contracts tied together where both premium payments are paid on time and in advance?
This is about like having car insurance denied or worse yet clawed back if there is house insurance. The insurance industry is highly regulated Why is this government program claw back not under investigation?
I think the first post is a little deceiving about the claw-back.
RMP is about grain pricing calculated over a period of time. It deals with the value of a bushel of grain. Agri-stability is about guaranteeing whole farm income.
If a farmer receives RMP it's deemed farm income and taken into account when Agri-stability is calculated. In the pilot program of RMP, it stipulated that farmers had to enroll in Agri-stability to qualify therefore ensured the province's limitation of pay-out.
Remember that Leona returned $82M of unused RMP money to Queen's Park early this year. Not having a ageement with the feds helped the provincial coffers in a big way because RMP piggy-backed on the Agri-Sweet programs.
The extended RMP does not require farmer's to enroll in agri-stability.
There are major flaws with the RMP and Agri-stability links the GFO will not address.
RMP is for grains farmers. If a grain farmer produces other commodities, Agri-stability works against them.
RMP is income that must be declared the year the check is issued.
This is a problem with farmers that do not have calender year-ends. RMP payments on one crop year are reflect on another fiscal year that affects Agri-stability eligibility. RMP payments are not harmonized with the tax calculations which is another way the government gets their money back.
RMP has a ton of dirty secrets.
Government promotes the nonsense that a clawback is necessary to avoid what they call "double-dipping" which, by definition, is when you pay once and benefit twice. The RMP clawback privision in AgriStability is the exact opposite of double dipping because you pay twice and benefit only once.
For example, when I received my 2009 AgriStability payment, my RMP benefits for 2009 were clawed back, thereby causing me to completely forfeit what I paid in premiums to get that RMP money in the first place. To be fair about the clawback, I should have had my RMP premium refunded, but it disappeared into a black hole, never to be seen again.
The bigger, and far-dirtier, secret about RMP and AgriStability, is that a fully-funded RMP with the clawback provision, will cause a stampede to get out of AgriStability, and rightly so.
The GFO know about the double-billing and the province is making money off the backs of farmers.
If the RMP is clawed back in Agri-Stability then the province should do the right thing and return the RMP fees to the farmers.
RMP is not a price insurance program. It's a money grab for the province.
RMP is a devious tax.
It would be interesting to know actual numbers of farmers in the RMP program that continue to be in it since 2007 with a 40 persent provincial funding. Farmers are dreaming if they think this new continued progarm is of much use after the continued lobby by farm organizations since 2002 . The GFO needs to show how many are in in the progarm out of 20 to 28000 producers. Farmers are being kept in the dark by GFO leadership as usual, What is worse is if the conservatives form the new govt in Ontario they wont do any better for farmers. Farmers are being played as great producers of food , fools to produce with low to no profit in most cases their children leave the farms to make a living as adults in a non agriculural profession or agribusiness. A cheap Canadian food policy supported by farmwes.
One has to wonder what the pay off is for our Farm Leadership
There is no problem in farming, farmers continue to buy new big shinny equipment costing hundereds of thounsands of dollars while also purchasing expense $8000 plus land per acre or paying high cost rent.
Then on top of that some drive expensive diesel pickups. period
I will think of you today as I ride my highly experienced 1975 4230 John Deere with just under 19000 hrs. "Dumb ass" (please read and interpret as an uninformed non verbal donkey that speaks foolish) I am sure you will be driving a gas 1/2 ton, 1/2 the age and 1/4 the hrs.
Eventually your car and my tractor will have to be replaced at a cost! .... just as I will too.
You bit hook line and sinker
Many farmers are in RMP a majority or minority
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