“While government is reviewing its TFW program, it needs to consider the practical needs of agri-businesses and the future of Canada’s food security,” said Juliette Nicolaÿ, CFIB’s policy analyst in a release. “Farmers are already struggling with chronic staffing shortages and when they turn to foreign labour, it’s only as a last resort because they can’t find anyone locally. That’s concerning given Canada’s ageing population and a perceived lack of interest among Canadian workers in a career in agriculture.”

The prevalence of TFWs has grown since the program was launched in the 1970s, with an estimated three in 10 agricultural businesses hiring TFWs in 2023. The reliance on foreign workers is even more pronounced in certain regions, such as Quebec (51 per cent), and sub-sectors characterized by labor intensive tasks, such as the fruits, vegetable and horticultural specialties (64 per cent), according to CFIB.

According to Employment and Social Development Canada, among employers who hired TFWs, 92 per cent said foreign workers helped them meet demand for their products or services, while 89 per cent said that TFWs helped them stay in business.

Most agri-businesses (59 per cent) say they would be in favour of a multi-employer work permit as an option, to enable employers to share a foreign worker. However, the majority don’t support sectoral and/or regional work permits whether it’s under the current (59 per cent) or a new program structure where a third party would recruit and dispatch a pool of foreign workers (50 per cent), as they fear such permits could facilitate employee poaching and hinder retention.

To improve the TFW program’s efficiency, CFIB recommends the federal government consider:

• Reducing red tape associated with hiring TFWs, notably streamlining the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) process
• Allowing for the sharing or transferring foreign workers as an option (e.g., multi-employer work permit)
• Indexing the housing deduction to inflation – it is currently C$30, which does not reflect real housing prices
• Allowing employers to match the wages offered by another employer with an LMIA in the same area to strengthen retention and curtail poaching. Provisions under the Employer Compliance Regime currently limit this.
• Reimbursing the employer for the costs associated with the administration and enforcement of the compliance inspection, should the LMIA not be issued
• Introducing a mechanism to compensate initial costs covered by the employer whose employee has been poached and streamlining access to new TFWs

The post Improvements to temporary foreign worker program recommended: CFIB appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

He capped a week of backing down on tax changes affecting farmers, fishers and other small businesses by announcing the government will reach out to business owners over the coming year to develop proposals that would better accommodate intergenerational transfers “while protecting the fairness of the tax system.”

• Read more: The loudest voices against tax reform are not neutral
• Read more: Did Bill Morneau just blink?

Earlier in the week, Morneau said the small-business tax rate would be reduced to nine per cent by 2019 from the current 10.5 per cent. He also promised clear rules on paying family members who work on a farm or in a small business.

“In our last budget, we recognized the agri-food sector as one of the most important for Canada’s economy, setting an ambitious goal to increase agri-food exports to $75 billion by 2025,” Morneau said. “We want to see farm and fishery families succeed… We will work to protect family farms and fisheries, and the ability of all family-run business owners to pass down the results of their hard work to the next generation.”

The minister did not say when legislation to bring the tax changes into effect would be presented to Parliament, but farm and many other business groups are expected to scrutinize that bill closely.

Ron Bonnett, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, applauded the minister’s willingness to “halt and reconsider a series of proposed tax reforms that would have led to severe negative impacts for family farm businesses.”

Proposals advanced in July to limit the lifetime capital gains exemption and options to convert income to capital gains “would have led to enormous complexity and added costs for intergenerational farm transfers and could have even encouraged farmers to sell their businesses to non-family members,” Bonnett said.

Earlier announcements on “a simplified reasonableness test and a minimum threshold on the taxation of passive investment income also appear to be steps in the right direction,” he said. “CFA will study the final proposals once legislation is tabled in Parliament, and looks forward to working with Finance Canada to ensure further issues are adequately addressed.”

John Ross, executive director of the Canadian Pork Council, said the announced changes “are going in the right direction. But we want to see what the whole package looks like at the end. The devil is in the details.”

The government would have been better off if it had reached out to the agriculture community before proceeding with the announcement of the proposed changes back in July, he said.

The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association also called Morneau’s announcements “a step in the right direction. We thank the government for recognizing the need to rescind its planned capital gains changes, as work undertaken by the CCA and other agriculture groups shows moving forward as intended would have significant unintended consequences in terms of increased cost, from tax perspective, to transfer farm in family compared to third party.”

The tax proposals released back in July “were counterintuitive to the government’s goal for positioning Canadian agriculture as a strategic growth sector and significant job creator,” CCA said. “Government tax policy should be designed to encourage investment and growth within the sector and help farmers manage risk, not become one of the risks that they need to avoid.”

Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, said the lower tax rate will “pump hundreds of millions of dollars back into the small-business community, helping it create more jobs and grow the economy.

“Still, the changes to rules allowing business owners to share income with their family members remain a concern for middle-income businesses,” he said. It welcomed the decision not to limit access to the lifetime capital gains exemption. However, CFIB remains concerned that the changes may not reflect the many formal and informal ways family members participate in the business.

“We will wait for details and analysis on all the changes before passing judgment on the entire package,” Kelly said.

The post Morneau pulls back on tax changes appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Quebec MP Guy Caron’s bill says the small business corporations including farms and fishing operations should be able to be transferred to younger family members without being hit with onerous taxes.

Caron presented the bill to the Commons May 19 but it likely won’t come for debate until the fall.

Basically the bill would change the Income Tax Act to allow a small business to be transferred to children and grandchildren over the age of 18 without falling under federal rules, which treat such actions as anti-tax avoidance moves.

CFA president Ron Bonnett said the bill would ease the tax burden on farmers and business owners seeking to transfer their businesses to the next generation, noting that over $50 billion in farm assets are set to change hands over the next 10 years.

“In order to ensure the continuation of family farms in Canada, urgent efforts are needed to address the barriers hindering farm transfers to family members,” Bonnett said in a release. “We are pleased to see this issue move forward in Parliament and are hopeful it receives the political profile and priority it deserves.”

“Many small business owners are telling us that tax rules discourage them from passing on their firm to their children and encourage selling to a stranger,” CFIB president Dan Kelly said in a release. “Mr. Caron’s bill addresses this unfairness and will help small business owners ensure their firm remains locally owned, creating and protecting local jobs.”

Bonnett said farmers face significant and costly obstacles when attempting to pass their business on to family members.

“Specific tax rules pose disincentives to keeping farms within the family and actually incent sales to non-family members. In many instances, farmers find it less costly to sell their farms to outside buyers,” Bonnett said.

“Only half of small business owners have a planned succession, and of those, 76 per cent plan to exit their businesses in the next 10 years,” Kelly said in his release.

“Passing Caron’s bill would be a positive step forward for Canada’s small businesses.”

The post Farm and business groups back proposed changes to family transfers appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

In a nutshell, not much, which isn’t surprising. After all, who among us does the happy dance at tax time or when Statistics Canada calls during supper?

But the comments CFIB members provided when responding to the annual survey are cause for reflection, not so much because of what they tell us about the regulatory burden on farmers, but rather farm operators’ state of mind.

“Farmers are burnt out by excessive government regulations, confusing forms and bad customer service,” the CFIB says in the report to be released this week. The report “also found that one-third of agribusiness owners would not advise their children to start a business given the burden of government red tape.”

According to CFIB, 63 per cent of farmers say red tape delays are a drain on their business, compared to 56 per cent of small business owners generally.

Sixty-four per cent of survey respondents said red tape reduced their productivity, 86 per cent said they found it stressful, 63 per cent said it discouraged their business from growing and 35 per cent said they would discourage their children from starting a business.

Among the comments from farmer respondents are these:

“The StatsCan surveys are ridiculous and always come at our busiest time of year,” said one member.

“Regulatory burden is crazy… (We) have to jump through hurdles to get answers to some of our questions. This impacts our business by higher stress levels and financial burdens,” said another.

“It takes more time to deal with all the regulations than it takes to operate the farm anymore. Makes me wonder why anyone would want to farm,” an Ontario farmer said.

“Many of the programs ask for the same information over and over again which they already have on file. It gets frustrating and futile,” said another.

If it’s any consolation, this year’s survey results are modestly lower across the board from 2013.

It must be noted that while the CFIB blames regulatory burden solely on government, much of the regulatory oversight in the farm business today is imposed by industry. Farmers routinely sign contracts with seed and input suppliers, which tie their hands operationally and which subject them to routine audits and followup.

Participation in those technology use contracts and government programs is voluntary, so farmers can choose not to sign on the dotted line. The fact that so many of them participate implies they see value there for their businesses.

To the extent that farmers are required to report, apply or otherwise deal with government bureaucracy at higher proportions than other businesses, it could be because they benefit from business risk-sharing arrangements that are not available to other businesses.

Manitoba farmers on average received just under $30,000 from program payments in 2013 and $43,000 in 2012. Over a five-year period between 2007 and 2011, those payments averaged $25,000, which was close to half of the average net operating income.

The red tape involved may be frustrating, but there are few activities in business — at least legal ones — that can generate that kind of return for a few hours of paperwork. And what’s “red tape” for some is “due diligence” for others — farmers don’t want those programs threatened by accusations that it’s lacking.

We don’t doubt that farmers feel frazzled at times by bureaucratic bungling, when it occurs. But perhaps a bigger source of stress is the increasing diversity of decisions involved with day-to-day operations. Farmers can’t or won’t outsource some of those management functions.

This point was noted in a recent Conference Board of Canada analysis of farm businesses in Canada. “Managerial specialization is key to business growth, but its development is often hindered by a farm operator’s unwillingness or inability to delegate and manage,” the report said, noting one factor is a lack of qualified farm labour.

“Both of these issues speak to the need for farm managers, themselves, to undergo more training in management and leadership — and to implement the workplace standards and practices that will help attract a new generation of smart, ambitious, and enterprising Canadians to farming.”

The CFIB survey respondents cited above appear to fall into the category of operators who are still trying to do it all. We recognize it’s not easy to find good help and that many farm businesses lack the financial capacity to outsource.

But on the farm these days, the paperwork is just as important to the bottom line as the field work. It’s doubtful farmers would want that to change.

The post Editorial: Paperwork versus field work appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz has released new CFIA policies on rights and services that outline its service standards and what the agri-food sector can expect when dealing with the agency.

“We know there is always room to improve,” he said. “We’re taking steps to strengthen communication and interaction between the agency, consumers, producers and the entire value chain so that we can all better work together to ensure safe food and a strong agriculture industry.”

There will also be a new process for businesses to lodge complaints about CFIA and appeal decisions of its inspectors.

Cutting red tape

The initiative appears to stem from the red tape cutting program of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, but many farm groups voiced support for it even though details remain sketchy.

The existing CFIA inspection and regulation policy has generated endless complaints over the years because of its arbitrariness and gotcha approach to enforcement rather than encouraging companies to do a better job and punishing repeat offenders.

Effective regulation, inspection and oversight are vital, said Ritz, but added farmers and processors “need to know for certain that their dealings with a public institution will be carried out predictably, fairly and consistently.”

He said relations between the two sides have been strained by “irregular service, different applications of the regulations and poor communication.”

Benefits

A more collaborative approach will benefit everyone, said Travis Toews, president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.

“The fact that there will now be a standard in place to ensure the CFIA is accountable for the service they provide will help to elevate stakeholder confidence in the process,” he said.

“We look forward to an enhanced working relationship with the CFIA that will strengthen ties throughout the sector and benefit the important inspection process as a whole.”

Dairy Farmers of Canada said new inspection guides for consumers, producers, processors, animal transporters, importers and exporters will help keep the food supply safe. However, it reminded the government the food industry has to remain competitive and shouldn’t be burdened with demands for more labelling.

While CFIA wants to deal with demands for all natural, natural flavour or homegrown designations, it also “needs to address consumer expectations on inspection and/or enforcement related to food labelling, misleading advertisements and claims made by the food industry.”

First step

The new policy “is a positive first step and we hope the CFIA ensures this culture of change is reflected in their daily interactions with producers and small businesses,” said Marilyn Braun-Pollon, CFIB’s vice-president for agribusiness.

“One of the biggest frustrations our members have is they feel they have no recourse if they experience bad customer service or do not agree with a regulatory decision. We hope all of these initiatives result in better working relationships between CFIA and those it regulates, and makes a tangible difference in the day-to-day life of business owners.”

Representatives of meat and poultry processors said in a joint statement that the new policy should “help businesses better understand their own role and responsibilities.”

The post CFIA accountability process strengthened appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Farmers in Canada are hardest hit by regulations, an alphabet soup of rules including land-use restrictions, product labelling, food safety, border inspection, pesticides and data collection, said Virginia Labbie, CFIB’s senior policy analyst for agribusiness.

The CFIB study found that “72 per cent of farmers want all levels of government to place a higher priority on cutting red tape, more than on any other measure, to help them compete and remain in business,” she said. Tax relief came in next at 68 per cent.

“With governments in the midst of finalizing a plan to support the future of agriculture in Canada, taking immediate action to reduce the regulatory burden will allow farmers to continue to provide consumers with high-quality, homegrown food,” said Labbie.

Farm groups endorsed the call for fewer regulations.

Farmers “face a myriad of regulations each day and any effort to streamline or reduce redundancy will help their bottom line,” said Ron Bonnett, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.

The process for developing regulations needs to include a “realistic assessment of what the regulations are supposed to accomplish,” he said, adding that too often regulations follow a token consultation with farmers.

Then there’s the irksome requirement to keep supplying government with information and data that’s already been submitted, he noted.

Farm groups have to collaborate on “developing an inventory of unnecessary and redundant regulations to present to the government,” said Bob Friesen, president of FNA-STAG.

There’s plenty of scope for reduction in pesticide and fertilizer regulations, he added. And then there are issues like efficacy testing that should be left to the market.

“If a product doesn’t work, farmers won’t buy it,” he said.

Governments should focus on the safety of the end product and not the process that produces it, said Richard Phillips, executive director of the Grain Growers of Canada.

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said the government has adopted the proposal from the Red Tape Reduction Commission to require “the removal of at least one regulation each time a new one is introduced that imposes administrative burden on business.”

His department, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Canadian Grain Commission are working to streamline regulations, he said, pointing to “a more flexible seed variety registration” as an example.

Canada is working with the U.S. through the Regulatory Co-operation Council to make the pesticide registration process more efficient and timely, he added.

CFIB would like the auditor general to report annually on the state of government regulation.

“We need to make a review of regulations a permanent feature on the political menu,” said Labbie.

The post Retire redundant regulations rapidly appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

International Limited said March 10 it has agreed to buy the North East Terminal grain-handling facility in Wadena, Saskatchewan.

The $25-million deal, which also includes crop input facilities at Wadena, Kelvington, Foam Lake and Ponass Lake, Saskatchewan, is expected to close on April 13.

The sale hinges on approval by North East shareholders, most of whom are local farmers, said the terminal’s general manager Garnet Ferguson. The 38,000-tonne crop-handling facility opened in 1992.

Promoting pet food:

The federal government is investing $175,000 to help Canada’s pet food industry promote its products internationally. The Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (PIJAC) will use the funds to build relationships with new and existing customers, and increase the sales, exports and value of its products, which include a range of pet food for dogs, cats, birds and other domesticated animals. The council will also attend U.S. and other international trade shows, and participate in outgoing missions, a federal release says. – Staff Food stocks:France has asked the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) to look into how pre-positioned food stocks in poor countries could help regions fight sudden rises in agricultural prices.

The organization is due to present a report on the issue at a meeting of agriculture ministers of the Group of 20 economies at the end of June. Paris has made the regulation of commodities markets, mainly agricultural, one of the priorities of its year-long presidency of the G20. Big plans:Morocco’s state-run phosphate monopoly OCP said March 9 it has started work on a new fertilizer plant as it seeks to strengthen its presence and sales to Africa’s under-productive agricultural sector. The plant is part of a plan OCP announced last year to turn the world’s top phosphate reserves holder into the biggest producer of diammonium phosphate (DAP) and monoammonium phosphate (MAP) by mid-2015. The one-million-tonne-per-annum plant is the second of four OCP plants to build as it gears up for a surge in global demand from farmers.

Adios La Nińa:The worst La Nińa weather anomaly in a decade should be gone completely by June, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center says. “The majority of (weather computer) models predict a return to … neutral” conditions by the Northern Hemisphere summer, the CPC, an office under the U.S. National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, said.

La Nińa, the little sister to the more infamous El Nińo, is an abnormal cooling of waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean and wreaks havoc with weather patterns across the Asia-Pacific region.

Cost of credit cards:

Support small business. Pay with cash or debit. That’s the gist of a new Canadian Federation of Independent Business initiative to raise awareness over crippling cost of credit cards over and above the interest rates on users’ unpaid balances. “Most consumers are unaware that each time their credit card is swiped, the merchant pays between 1.5 to three per cent of the sale to the credit card company, while an Interac debit transaction costs less than 12 cents,” said CFIB spokesman Dan Kelly.

– Staff Buying land:Chinese edible oil firm Julong Group, said Beijing may provide subsidies this year to local companies buying up plantation land outside the country, as China seeks to secure food supplies.

Sun Wei Jun, an official with Julong Group, said the government would like Chinese firms to own more food estates overseas.

Julong Group, the largest unlisted edible oils processor in China, has already ventured into oil palm estates five years ago on the Indonesian side of Borneo Island and now has a land bank of 100,000 hectares.

The post In Brief… – for Mar. 17, 2011 appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

By most accounts, the initiative was well-received by the non-farming public because it was, quite simply, an opportunity to “touch the farm” in a way displays and exhibits at urban events can’t provide.

City folks may be largely ignorant of the realities of modern farming and yet judging from the popularity of farmers markets and local food initiatives, many are looking looking for ways to better connect with their food suppliers.

The Open Farm Day drew people past the Perimeter, offering what for many would be a rare glimpse of rural Manitoba. Without a reason to venture off the major highways, most Manitobans are left to form their images and thoughts about agriculture from what they see in media.

This initiative had them talking face-to-face with people on the land, not only hearing their farming story first-hand but seeing it for themselves.

The majority of 35 farms participating in the event were producers who are already engaged in some form of agritourism, which made them capable ambassadors. But while they represent a face of agriculture that is increasingly important to the rural Manitoba economy, these operations are very different from those that are focused on production agriculture for export, which are arguably the dominant agricultural activity in agro-Manitoba.

It’s understandable, given the kind of growing season and harvest mainstream farmers are having, why many would be reluctant to host visitors to their operation.

But at a time when many farmers lament the disconnect they feel with food consumers, it’s important farmers seize opportunities like this one to start the dialogue. Consumers may be more inclined to understand modern farming practices, and less inclined to be critical when they see how farmers operate first hand.

Likewise, farmers might come to realize that some of the concerns consumers have over how their food is raised are genuine and not founded on misinformation.

As business operators, farmers first and foremost need to understand their customers. This is is apparently a foreign concept to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which issued a churlish assessment of the Open Farm Day in a release last week.

Rather than celebrate what most would agree was a good idea, the federation seized the opportunity to lambaste the province for what it characterized as “on-going attacks on Manitoba agri-business owners.”

“It’s interesting the government is eager to showcase farms, but seems less interested in talking about the many roadblocks it has introduced to the agricultural sector over the past few years,” said Shannon Martin, director of provincial affairs in a release.

The regressive measures cited included the two per cent levy on quota transfers, the regional hog moratorium, expanding employment standards, expanding workers compensation benefits to farm workers, and new regulations on fertilizer applications.

We acknowledge many farmers do see these as irritants. However, we sincerely hope farmers participating in the event didn’t take their cues from the CFIB in their interactions with the public.

Imagine how the conversation might go:

Visitor: I hear you farmers have been having a hard time lately.

Farmer: Yeah, it’s really tough being in the farming business right now. You city people think we’re just in it for the lifestyle, but we’re business people through and through – and we’d be making money too, if only the government came up better subsidies and fewer roadblocks.

Visitor: Like what?

Farmer: Well, the Manitoba government won’t let us raise more hogs. That’s crippling our industry.

Visitor: But, weren’t you asking for aid to cull the sow herd and euthanize baby pigs not so long ago? In fact, if I remember right, your industry association was asking for those subsidies right about the same time I was seeing all those billboards in Winnipeg complaining about the hog moratorium.

Farmer: Well, uh, yes, but umm…, farming businesses face special challenges. And that’s not the only roadblock we’re facing. The government is now telling us we have to treat farm workers like real employees and give them days off and benefits and make sure they are covered by workers compensation and crap like that. How’s a business supposed to make money that way?

Visitor: Do you mean farm employees didn’t get those benefits before? Why not?

Farmer: Because, uh, we’re farmers, that’s why. Farming’s special.

The fact is, most non-farmers would find what the CFIB labels as “attacks on farming” as acceptable standards for any business.

The Open Farm Day is a valuable initiative. We hope more farmers from all facets of the industry participate in the future. In the end, they may learn as much as they teach. laura@fbcpublishing.com

The post A Good Idea – for Sep. 23, 2010 appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Its Monthly Agriculture Business Barometer shows the confidence of the agriculture sector retreated in the month of June to an index of 51.0, well below the national average of 66.4. “Given the significant challenges in the Canadian agricultural sector, such as the extensive flooding in Western Canada, it is not surprising to see optimism dip eight points since this spring,” said Marilyn Braun-Pollon, CFIB’s vice-president of agribusiness.

She said the federal and provincial agriculture ministers’ gathering in Saskatoon last week was a good time to address “the problematic areas within AgriStability and make immediate improvements to the program.”

CFIB has already spelled out the serious concerns farmers have with AgriStability, which is supposed to help them cope with natural disaster and market downturns, she said. Many provincial farm economies are struggling.

Its report, AgriStability or Aggravation, said governments should play a clearer role in helping farmers manage risk. “Addressing actions of foreign governments was the top priority, but it’s pretty clear that farmers also believe government should assist in managing risks beyond a producer’s control (e. g. flooding). While government(s) cannot, and should not, be there at every turn, they do have the opportunity to fuel optimism by making these risk management tools more responsive, more timely, less complicated and more predictable.

“We are hopeful the ag ministers are also serious about inspiring innovation and creativity in the agribusiness sector,” she said. “CFIB has long called for the burden of red tape to be lifted off the shoulders of the agriculture sector, as well as (creation of ) a competitive tax environment in which farmers and agribusiness owners operate.

Ministers have been reviewing business risk management programs since July 2008. “Our members believe many changes could be implemented to improve AgriStability,” she said. “Tangible results must be delivered.”

The post Farmer Optimism Wanes appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Nearly 60 per cent of CFIB agr ibusinesses surveyed expressed dissatisfaction with the program, calling it too complicated, expensive, unpredictable and just plain ineffective.

Twenty-seven per cent of respondents said they were “very dissatisfied” with AgriStability, while 31 per cent said they were “somewhat dissatisfied.”

The results, based on a recent poll of nearly 1,100 CFIB agribusiness members, paint a picture of a program that simply does not meet farmers’ needs, says a report titled “AgriStability or Aggravation?”

“AgriStability as currently designed is not providing an adequate long-term solution to Canadian producers,” CFIB said in releasing the results last week.

The survey reflects a “glaring frustration” with Canada’s key farm business risk management program, it concluded.

CFIB claims a membership of 105,000 small-and medium-sized businesses, including 7,200 agri-businesses, not all of which are actual farms.

The survey results parallel long-standing complaints by farm groups, including Keystone Agricultural Producers, about AgriStability, a margin-based program that deals with losses of more than 15 per cent in a producer’s average margin from previous years.

AMONG THE CFIB’S FINDINGS:

Producers who need the most help from the program get the least, especially livestock producers.

Payments are inadequate. Just 34 per cent of respondents said their payments enabled them to cover their margin losses.

Sixty-five per cent of producers surveyed rated the predictability of payments as poor.

The average producer spends $1,984 a year to participate in AgriStability, twice what he or she spent on CAIS, its unpopular predecessor.

The paperwork is burdensome and too complicated. As a result, only 11 per cent of farmers say they have a good understanding of the program. As one respondent put it: “I have no idea how some of the numbers are being generated and neither does my accountant.”

The five-year reference margin is unfair to producers, especially hog and cattle farmers, who have suffered several straight years of margin declines. Said one producer: “The program as it exists does not cover continual disasters and steady declining incomes.”

When producers do qualify for payments, they arrive long after losses are incurred. Some producers reported waiting two years for a payment.

CFIB makes a number of recommendations to improve AgriStability, including less paperwork, fewer regulations, more transparency and greater predictability.

Canada’s agriculture ministers are currently reviewing business risk management (BRM) programs, including AgriStability, under the Growing Forward agricultural policy framework. Ministers will receive an update report at their annual meeting July 6-8 in Saskatoon. The current five-year Growing Forward program expires March 13, 2013.

In a statement, CFIB said governments have reviewed BRMs since July 2008 but “producers have yet to see any meaningful changes to these programs.” ron@fbcpublishing.com

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