(File photo/ farmnewsNOW)

By Nigel Maxwell

Milk money

Federal budget delivers compensation money for hard hit farmers

Mar 19, 2019 | 4:54 PM

Dairy, egg and poultry farmers who have lost money because of Canada’s recent free-trade agreements with Europe and the Pacific Rim, will receive billions of dollars in compensation, according to Tuesday’s federal budget.

The budget sets aside $2.15 billion over the coming years for supply-managed farmers who have experienced a loss in income. Joy Smith, Sask Milk’s Manager of Policy and Communication, said the trade deals have been felt by dairy farmers across the country.

“Over 18 per cent of the Canadian dairy market has been given away in trade deals and so you know that’s a considerable amount of economic activity that Canada is not going to have,” she said.

Another $1.5 billion has been earmarked in the budget to compensate farmers who lose money when they sell their stakes in the three protected domestic markets. Smith said she was aware some form of compensation would be coming but there were questions regarding what form it would take and when.

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“And unfortunately we still don’t have some of those details. This is just preliminary information we are getting,” she explained.

Smith said it’s unfortunate the federal government had to use part of the dairy industry to get the deals completed. She compared the compensation to what a farmer might receive if the provincial government needed a piece of their land to build a highway.

“The bottom line is farmers did not want to be in this position. Dairy farmers did not want to see the market go away or get compensation for it,” she said. “But once that was done, both governments, the previous conservative government and this government, said there’s going to be compensation for the loss of that and so we are just starting to see that come to fruition.”

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nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell

— with files from the Canadian Press