By Alice McFarlane

Federal government drops proposal on AgriStability reform

Nov 27, 2020 | 5:20 PM

MELFORT, Sask. – A proposal on improvements to business risk management programs (BRM) is now in the hands of the country’s agriculture ministers.

At the conclusion of the virtual agriculture ministers meeting federal minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said the federal government is prepared to make enhancements to AgriStability that would be applied retroactively to the 2020 year and on.

“As a starting point our government is looking to remove the reference margin limit,” Bibeau said. “To ensure a greater coverage on losses and to ensure funding is targeted to the farmers who are impacted the most I also proposed we find consensus to increase the compensation rate from 70 per cent to 80 per cent.”

Bibeau said the federal department has estimated if all jurisdictions remove the reference margin limits that alone will increase the overall amounts of funding available to farmers through AgriStability by over 30 per cent.

“If we also increase the compensation rate it would increase by more than 50 per cent,” she said.

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There is no timeframe for the provinces and territories to respond.

Ontario agriculture minister Ernie Hardeman said the proposal hit the table today and although BRM reform has been discussed before this is the first time the ministers have something formal to consider.

“We’ve talked about hypothetical; we’ve talked about changes. Some may like them, and some may not,” Hardeman said. “But this is the first proposal the government has laid on the table. I think we need to provide the opportunity for everybody to consider it and figure out what the impact would be to their producers and their treasury.”

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF