by BETTER FARMING STAFF
Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Carol Mitchell met with agriculture leaders in the Lucknow area Friday to discuss Ontario’s planned risk management program for grain and oilseed, cattle, hog, sheep and veal farmers as well as the edible horticulture sector.
OMAFRA senior communications advisor Sarah Petrevan said three or four similar meetings are planned at various Ontario locations to get feedback from the farm community to develop program details.
“We’re not going to be out for too long because we want to make sure there’s going to be time to get down to the details on working some of the things for the program,” Petrevan said, adding they hope to have program details worked out sometime in June.
Among those attending Friday’s meeting, Petrevan said, were representatives of various farm groups and local food processors. BF
Comments
The last federal election ,on the road again Federal Mr. Harper with his tour bus came to Southern Ontario farms and had rallies . At one such farmer rally Mr. Harper's professional staging group had well planned podium staged speech with visible teleprompter speech reading. Mr. Harper and speech came off as the economic saviour of farmers , CAIS, etc. I don't quite think the Harper conservatives did a good job for farmers economic needs, spelled needs not wants . In Ontario grain country Harper's backside is being saved because international grain prices are high in the stratosphere, while livestock is improving.
With out farmers and rural ridings in Ontario and else were MR. Harper conservatives would never have got a win with a minority government ,farmers were played as fools for political gain, we got basic nothing useful.
On the road with risk management again Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Carol Mitchell met with agriculture leaders in the Lucknow area Friday to discuss Ontario’s planned risk management program for grain and oilseed, cattle, hog, sheep and veal farmers as well as the edible horticulture sector.
We have an Ontario election in fall 2011. Will the farm leaders and farmers.
fall for promises of Ontario RMP by election Liberal provincial Govt promise? What good is a 40 percent funded program that will take another 10 years to get the flaws out, corrected with true business costs allowed? What kind of a country with a flawed watered down RMP do we have,.. when political govt parties pull such openly visible vote buying crap, and we farmers accept it.
Please note the federal Chretien liberal govt gave farmers little, The past Ontario conservative govt made promises to farmers. all with minimum use and poorly funded
Any thing short of non watered down flawed programs should not be election voter supported . How do vote on promise?
Better Farming, can you please do a follow up on the following questions?
Questions: I read it somewhere (and is it true) that if someone signs up for RMP that this will then be clawed back on Agri-Stability? Can someone sign up for RMP but not for Agri-Stability, or does one have to sign up for both? (or vise versa)
I find it a bit confusing. Thank you.
Find the answers for yourself on Agricorp's site at www.agricorp.com. The information includes:
"RMP payments are counted as an advance on the provincial portion of your AgriStability payment for the corresponding year"
And for the 2010 RMP extension, and just for the 2010 extension:
"Due to the timing of the announcement, producers are not required to participate in Production Insurance and AgriStability."
The real problem, from a numbers point of view, is that anyone likely to get any sort of AgriStability payment for any given year, is also highly-likely to get a fairly-significant RMP payment - it's not guaranteed, but it's still highly-likely.
Therefore, since being in AgriStability is 99.99% likely to be a condition of joining the new RMP, what's the advantage of paying premiums into both RMP and AgriStability, but getting benefits from effectively only one?
Or, to look at it another way, the combined effect of the RMP clawback, plus the forfeiture of the RMP premium for that year, turns AgriStability into well-less than a 85% margin program.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Nice post, Stephen.
You pointed out ""Due to the timing of the announcement, producers are not required to participate in Production Insurance and AgriStability."
People have to remember that part was put in because the 2010 pilot extension was announced late August of 2010. it was too late to enroll in production insurance. Most people had a good idea what their crops looked like and the wheat was already off. It would have been a matter of betting on a horse race after the horses already crossed the line.
But what most people didn't know was that if they were part of the 2007, 2008 & 2009 RMP program years, they were automaticaly enrolled into the 2010 Pilot year unless they called by a dateline to opt out. Reverse onus and it took many farmers by surprise.
If they didn't opt out, the premiums would be deducted from future payments such as AgriStability.
I thought that was sneaky of them.
Some of your assumptions about Agri Stability payments and RMP payments coming out at the same time don't really hold water. They are designed for totally different scenarios. A diversified farmer will not collect AS if, for instance, hog prices were mediocre and he marketed his soybeans really well. But if the cost of raising those hogs was higher than the floor price, he/she would get an RMP payment. And RMP pays out much quicker than the time it takes to process the AS forms. Also, for commodities, like livestock, with no production insurance, the individuality of AS programming pays out when problems on a single farm occurs, even if there is a high enough market price to rule out getting an RMP program. One program is a cost insurance program, the other is a farm specific stabilization.
I did point out that while there's not a direct link between RMP and AgriStability, there is, nonetheless, a significant chance that anytime someone gets a payment from the AgriStability program, he/she has already received a sizable RMP payment for that particular year - thereby rendering the farmer completely out-of-pocket for his/her RMP fees. It's a simple concept - do the math.
Besides all that, you're completely missing the point which is that it doesn't matter what you call them, RMP and AgriStability are funded as two completely-separate programs, but are considered to be only one program when it comes time for a payout.
I just don't understand why farmers, and farm groups alike, seem to have so much trouble grasping what's wrong with "pay twice, benefit once" concept inherent in the design of RMP and AgriStability.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
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