(file photo/farmnewsNOW Staff)

By Alice McFarlane

Farmers experience delays with cash advance payments

Apr 28, 2020 | 2:49 PM

Long delays have farmers waiting for money through the Advance Payments Program.

Canadian Canola Growers Association (CCGA) is one of a number of
organizations that administer the cash advance on behalf of the federal government.

CCGA President and CEO Rick White said one reason for the delay is the administrative difficulties caused by COVID-19. Each year 11,000 applications are processed but with staff working from home since mid-March the process is slower.

White said additional program checks introduced by the federal government has also slowed the process.

“Ag Canada implemented new rules on assessing a more stringent process to determine credit worthiness for the 2020 program starting Apr.1,” White said. “It added more work to an already reduced functionality of our business continuity. A week into it I could see we were going backwards quickly and getting further and further behind.”

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White said he brought the matter to the attention of the agriculture minister. After a week of negotiations, some of the new rules were relaxed. However, there is still a huge backlog but the situation has improved.

“Our curve is flattening in terms of time to get those advances out, but we are still several weeks behind. We have communicated directly with farmers through email and on our website to please understand that we are doing the best that we can,” he said.

White said more complex applications takes more work and will take weeks to process.

“It depends if a farmer has a good track record with us. It depends if they are looking for an advance in excess of $400,000. It depends on the individual farmer’s credit score,” he said.

If a farmer submits an application for $100,000 interest free and they’ve been a customer for the past five years with no default track record, White said those applications can go through within two weeks.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF