by SUSAN MANN
For the first time ever, Ontario livestock farmers enrolled in the province’s business Risk Management Program will be getting an interim payment.
Arigcorp spokesperson Stephanie Charest says the 2011 interim payments started going out this week to producers who had signed up and submitted all of their necessary information.
For the Self-Directed Risk Management program for edible horticulture, Agricorp has been sending 2011 participants notices for the past two weeks that they can withdraw their money.
In the grains and oilseeds Risk Management Program, canola and spring grains triggered a payment and farmers received their payments in the late November, early December period.
Charest says there haven’t been any glitches in getting the money out to producers.
The new risk management program helps producers manage risks beyond their control, such as fluctuating costs and market prices. It’s available for cattle, hogs, sheep, veal, grains and oilseeds and edible horticulture. BF
Comments
The cheque is in the mail you say?
I got a small RMP payment but when Agristability was trigger, the whole RMP was clawed back. I paid RMP fees and Agristability fees but I am told I can only collect on one program in one year.
Now I ask. When the RMP is clawed back by the feds, does Agricorp get that money back? If it does, where does it show up on the financial statements for the province? Its obviously not in the Agricorp account.
RMP is "clawed-back" from the provincial portion of AgriStability benefits received, not the federal portion.
Although I can't confirm it, I suspect the RMP premiums government gets to keep when RMP benefits are clawed back, go to help the Province fund its share of the AgriStability program.
It's all about the money - it's a fantastic deal for government to charge premiums for two programs, yet have to pay out on effectively only one, and of course they'll go to great lengths to try to justify continuing to be able to do so.
Farm groups seem to always be "asleep-at-the-wheel" whenever an accounting double-standard is foisted on farmers, and the RMP clawback feature is just the latest in a long-string of bad policies farm groups have done nothing about.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
I feel bad for you Mr Thompson all these years you trying to tell people when these programs fail using true accounting. It is very strange you being a past Huron federation president and strong OFA man, that ofa executive has never got the picture correct and backed you up. There is something wrong with this continued disconnect. If everything is made so complicated there is no simple honesty and accountability
I'll never understand why all of the collective intelligence at, and around, the OFA continues to be so obtuse when it comes to basic accounting and farm management principles.
Don't feel bad for me, or for my clients - we'll all do OK, but I'm constantly discouraged in that I appear to be the only person in the entire farm community speaking out against basic, and fundamental, design problems in farm assistance programs.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
(519) 482 - 3244
I got a call from a livestock farmer client last night - over $3,300 of his 2011 RMP benefit was applied to an outstanding balance on his 2003 Advance Ontario Agricultural Payment, a balance neither he, not I, knew he owed.
It's a neat ploy - the Province takes political credit for announcing a program (before an election) which will serve to collect (after the election) money improperly disbursed close to a decade ago, and which otherwise would never be recovered.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton, ON
If you read the booklet sent to farmers, there is a clause in the RMP.
It says that the Agricorp can withhold any money for any reason it sees fit.
With that kind of power Agricorp only needs a vivid imagination to claw money from farmers and there is no recourse for the farmer. The government gave Agricorp "absolute discretion" to withhold money.
When the farmer signed the dotted line for RMP he agreed that Agricorp had "absolute discretion".
Yet no farm organization protested
Revenue Canada has a statute of limitations in years I believe 7
The RMP PROGRAM is tied to Farm organizations lack of accountability.
Farm organizations need operating Cash flow like normal business, Staff weekly payroll etc etc. farm Organizations Are given $150per year for each farm member who chooses the organization. Ontario government has accreditation hearings every 3 years to approve or reject NFU, OFA,or CFFO
Farm organizations become OBTUSE fearing rejection of accreditation by Ontario Govt. if they go to far and oppose government of Ontario
THE ONTARIO GOVERNMENT HAS THE BEST GAME IN TOWN TO CONTROL FARMERS So the farm organizations have an accountability problem that cannot be solved and get justice for non supply management farmers.
We have the chicken and the egg story adjusting legalized controlled farmer Canadian born Capitalism but legal Dictatorship, and a fine example of double standards that although bad is far superior than what you have in other poor countries. The only problem is, it uses and pukes the farmers generation after generation weeding out most while reinventing the wheel by always importng money-ed immigrant foreign farmers as in the past. The stats show this group sets the bar of farmers to compete with the existing farmers.
New Year Resolution
Find out
Why farmers allow farm organizations operating resulting in a lack of farm organization and government accountability to farm members.
We got our RMP payment just before xmas what a kick in the butt $132.00 after the clawbacks from over eight years ago its a good job we didn't have to go anywhere i think gas was around .60 cents a litre then and hasn't fertilizer more than doubled . among everything else and i no that the price of cattle are finally back to what they were in 2001 so we have had ten years of crap to deal with and now any help that was there they want it back with out any notification.
Lyle.
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