Ontario Ag Minister Joins CPC To Urge More AgriStability Relief

Ontario Agriculture Minister Ernie Hardeman has now joined agriculture leaders in urging the federal government to amend its AgriStability program to protect farmers that have been financially hit by market volatility and disruption resulting from COVID-19

by iPolitics.ca – the Sprout

Hardeman’s call to action followed his meeting with many Ontario commodity organizations.

“This has been a very difficult year, with farmers facing increased pressures due to COVID-19, and I stand with our farmers in calling for additional government support through the AgriStability program now,” Hardeman said. “We believe this is a national problem and it requires a national solution.”

Hardeman and agriculture leaders want Ottawa to remove a component of AgriStability called the “reference margin limit,” and to lower the margin-loss threshold required to trigger payments under the program to provide more coverage against income loss, thereby increasing farmers’ confidence in running their operations when COVID-19 is creating uncertainty in trade and markets.

“Our government has committed to contributing our share of an increased national AgriStability program, but, to date, the federal government has not,” Hardeman said. “We are calling on the government of Canada to immediately make the program enhancements needed for AgriStability to help farmers manage the many risks that are very much outside of their control.”

“Canada is one of four other countries in the World Trade Organization to sponsor Australia’s push for more transparency in farming during the pandemic”

 

Earlier this week the Canadian Pork Council submitted a letter to provincial, federal and territorial agriculture ministers, urging AgriStability compensation rates be increased from 70 per cent to 85 per cent.

“A simple solution would be to leave the trigger at 70 per cent, but increase the compensation rate to 85 per cent. Doing so would retain AgriStability as a disaster program, respect Canada’s trade obligations, significantly reduce the cost to governments, but still provide additional support to those who are facing extreme loss.”

The federal government has suggested the cost of increasing the AgriStability trigger would be about $400 million.

Canada is one of four other countries in the World Trade Organization to sponsor Australia’s push for more transparency in farming during the pandemic. The document presented by Australia at a July 28 WTO agriculture committee meeting calls for an expedited process for countries to notify the WTO of new policies. Australia also provided a report on the ad-hoc COVID-19 measures it took and Canada has committed to doing the same, according to Farmtario.

Originally published by iPolitics.ca – The Sprout