Manitoba’s new ag minister says his immediate priority will be to see through long-term recovery plans after 2021’s severe drought.
“We’re going to work with the Beef Producers and Manitoba Forage and Grasslands to ensure the (drought relief) programs remain responsive,” said Derek Johnson, the new minister of agriculture and MLA for Interlake-Gimli.
In November, the province rolled out a program under the AgriRecovery framework to help beef producers rebuild herds if they’d been forced to sell off breeding stock.
“It’s very important that we stay nimble and we also have to remain responsive and understand that there’s lingering effects of the drought,” Johnson told the Co-operator on January 20.
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Eichler out
A cabinet shuffle on January 18 saw Johnson replace Ralph Eichler in the ag portfolio. Previously, Johnson was the minister of municipal relations — a post he held for about a year.
Eichler was ag minister from 2016 to 2019, and took the role again in mid-2021 after Blaine Pedersen announced he would not be seeking re-election. Eichler was removed from cabinet, rather than being moved to another portfolio.
The shuffle also saw resource development split off from agriculture.
“There’s obviously a focus right now with the drought and everything on agriculture, and the department is now going to be laser focused on that,” Johnson said.
Johnson grew up on a beef farm near Oak Point, a community in the Interlake along Lake Manitoba.
“It’s just part of my background,” he said.
His daughter now raises horses on the farm, Johnson said.
Before he was elected to provincial office, Johnson was a councillor for the RM of St. Laurent from 2010 to 2014.
Johnson on key issues
The Co-operator asked Johnson what he would be doing to address a fragile transportation system which has disrupted things like feed and pig shipments.
According to media reports, the recently imposed vaccination requirement for truckers crossing the border into Canada affects about 10 per cent of truckers, and has further disrupted a strained system.
The vaccine requirement is federal jurisdiction, Johnson said, “but that doesn’t mean we’re going to sit here and remain voiceless.”
On January 20, Johnson said he hoped to speak with the federal ag minister about potential solutions early in the next week.
The Co-operator also asked if Johnson would review the issue of Crown lands unit transfers.
In 2019, the province outraged ranchers after it removed the right to transfer Crown land leases with the sale of a ranch. Later amendments allowed leases to be transferred to family, however, tension remained and in early 2021, a group of leaseholders vowed legal action against the province.
“We’re a listening government,” Johnson told the Co-operator. “We’re going to review a lot of things, and that will be one of them on the list.”
Beef producers have spoken loudly and the province will “work with them to see if there’s something that is advantageous to them as beef producers,” Johnson said.
He clarified that “review” was a strong word.
“I’m going to look at it, and we’ll go from there,” he said, adding he wasn’t entirely up to speed yet on that file.
The Co-operator asked Johnson if he would make changes to the AgriStability program, particularly if he would respond to producer groups’ ask to increase the program’s reference margin to 85 per cent from 70 per cent.
Since early 2021, the federal government has indicated willingness to drop the reference margin but Manitoba has thus far refused to ratify that change.
Johnson said he wasn’t up to speed on that file yet.
“We are working with our federal and provincial colleagues to see if there is anything we can do to make that work better for the producers,” he added.
For more content related to drought management visit The Dry Times, where you can find a collection of stories from our family of publications as well as links to external resources to support your decisions through these difficult times.
