By Alice McFarlane

Saving Alberta farmers time and money

Oct 18, 2024 | 5:00 PM

Farmers often face burdensome paperwork and high accounting fees. Governments are making changes to programs to address these challenges.

AgriStability protects Canadian producers against large declines in farming margins for reasons such as production loss, increased costs and market conditions.

Changes to Agriculture Financial Services Corporation’s (AFSC) AgriStability program will reduce paperwork and lower costs for producers.

A new option is to align AgriStability reporting with tax filing in 2025. This will make enrolment and participation in the program much easier. An accelerated deadline to submit program forms to AFSC will lead to earlier payments.

Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation Minister RJ Sigurdson said enrolling in AgriStability can also provide producers access to other credit options like the federal Advance Payments Program, which offers low-cost cash advances.

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“We value the dedication and adaptability of our province’s farmers,” he said. “These changes to the AgriStability program will better respond to each producer’s unique situation, making the program more predictable, timely and simpler to access, which is what producers have been asking for.”

AgriStability is an individual, whole-farm, margin-based program that helps producers who experience margin declines greater than 30 per cent due to production loss, adverse market conditions and increased costs.

In 2023, AgriStability also increased compensation for margin declines exceeding 30 per cent, offering 80 cents per dollar of decline, up from the previous rate of 70 cents.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @farmnewsNOW