“There’s just no feed crop to go around in this area, so farmers are starting to sell some of their animals,” NDP MP Mathieu Ravignat (Pontiac, Que.) said following meetings with farmers in his riding on July 25. “The price of beef, in particular, is really down, so this is a very tough time for farmers.”
Mr. Ravignat met with representatives from farm cooperatives and agricultural financing institutions in the town of Bryson in his region, as well as Quebec Liberal MNA Charlotte L’Écuyer, who serves as the provincial representative for Pontiac. Livestock farmers in Pontiac are seeking access to affordable quality feed and want the assistance of the federal and provincial governments in coordinating access.
“There’s no feed to feed the livestock. People are running out of water,” Pontiac farmer Randy Hodgins told CTV Ottawa last week.
The West Quebec riding is one of many in Quebec, Ontario, and Atlantic Canada hard hit by a month of drought conditions.
Apple farmers in southern Ontario, meanwhile, already experienced significant crop damage during a false-start summer in March, while livestock farmers are currently struggling with high feed prices as a result of lower grain, corn and hay yields.
Robert McLeman, professor of environmental studies at the University of Ottawa, said that the current drought is likely the worst that Ontario has seen in two decades. Some farmers have said that it’s the worst drought that the region has seen in 50 years.
“Certainly it’s the worst we’ve seen in the last decade or two,” said Prof. McLeman. “What we really need is a good solid week of soft, steady rain to get a decent crop out.”
Soft fruit and apple crops are likely a write-off for 2011, and Prof. McLeman said the window is now closing for farmers to salvage crops like corn and soybeans and get a second cut of hay. He said he expects the drought, which has hit U.S. crops even harder, to raise food prices in the coming years.
“A lot of these corn crops go into things like animal feed, ethanol production, and sweeteners, so it’s going to trickle down into other parts of the economy,” he told The Hill Times.
NDP agriculture critic Malcolm Allen (Welland, Ont.) warned that the persistent drought would raise food prices well into 2013 during a press conference in Ottawa on July 24.
“Food prices will be increasing for consumers this fall and in the next year,” Mr. Allen said at the National Press Theatre along with NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau (Berthier-Maskinongé, Que.) who also represents a rural farming riding. “Livestock producers across the eastern half of the country will see food prices go up for meat because of the cost of food stock.”
Liberal agriculture critic Frank Valeriote (Guelph, Ont.), who also represents a largely rural farming riding, said the federal government should activate the Livestock Tax Deferral Program that would enable farmers to defer taxes on their capital gains from livestock sales until next year. Farmers in his riding are also beginning to sell off livestock, such as sheep and breeding cattle, due to high feed prices.
The federal government and provinces provide a suite of business risk management programs for farmers under the 2008 Growing Forward policy framework, including AgriInvest, AgriStability, AgriRecovery and AgriInsurance.
AgriRecovery is in place to respond to disaster situations, and any assistance granted through the program is split 60/40 between the federal government and affected province, respectively. AgriStability delivers coverage to farmers facing production shortfalls exceeding 15 per cent of a reference year.
However, the Growing Forward framework is set to expire in 2013, at which point it will transition to the Growing Forward 2 framework. The House Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food published recommendations for the new framework in May. The report noted witness complaints that the current AgriRecovery program fails to properly define “disaster.” However, the report also recommends that industry would benefit if Growing Forward 2 focuses “on risk management programs that do not mask market signals.”
Opposition MPs are raising alarms that the government plans to cut the business risk management programs that farmers in Eastern Canada will likely require in 2012 by as much as $2-billion under Growing Forward 2.
Mr. Valeriote, who serves on the House Agriculture Committee, said his Conservative colleagues on the committee focused on reducing business risk management programs throughout their study of Growing Forward.
“The very time that we need to be able to adapt to extreme climate is hardly the time to reduce risk management programs by $2-billion. These are the very occurrences that demand robust risk management programs, not depleted risk management programs,” Mr. Valeriote said.
In a written response to The Hill Times and other media, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz (Battlefords-Lloydminster, Sask.) stated last week that Agriculture Canada is monitoring the conditions in Eastern Canada, but added that it was too soon to tell whether or not disaster relief would be necessary.
“Unpredictable weather like we are seeing in Ontario only further highlights the importance for farmers to have and utilize crop insurance,” read a statement from Minister Ritz’s office. “In addition, our government has numerous business risk management programs to help farmers mitigate and manage the financial impact of weather-related events, like drought and excessive moisture.”
Conservative MP Larry Miller (Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, Ont.), who chairs the House Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food and who also represents a rural riding, said he was confident that federal-provincial agricultural assistance programs would be able to assist farmers experiencing crop loss this year.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got to wait and see how bad the damage is, but in my opinion it’s very severe,” said Mr. Miller. “If this drought gets to the point where [AgriRecovery] needs to be kicked in, I’m confident that it will work if and when required.”
Mr. Miller operated his own farm before becoming an MP and now leases out his farmland. His property mainly produces hay, but wheat, corn, soybeans and canola are grown throughout his riding.
Mr. Miller said that corn and apple growers in his riding have seen some of the worst damage from the drought. Apple crops in his riding were damaged early on in the year when a March heat wave triggered premature blossoming in orchards. The ongoing drought has only compounded the problem for apple farmers.
“I don’t think we should panic yet, but back in the spring a lot of the apple orchards in my riding were just fried,” he told The Hill Times. “What it didn’t finish off, this drought probably will, so I think it’s going to be a disaster in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound for the fruit industry.”
Conservative MP Pierre Lemieux (Glengarry- Prescott-Russell, Ont.), who serves as Parliamentary secretary to Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and who also represents a rural riding, said farmers in his riding are concerned, but said he has not heard any calls for immediate assistance from the federal government.
“No one has mentioned that to me. You have to get to the end of the growing season to see what the impact is,” Mr. Lemieux said, adding that many of the business risk management programs under the Growing Forward framework must be initiated by the provinces.
“AgriRecovery is a joint federal-provincial program, it needs to be triggered by the province,” Mr. Lemieux said. “Ontario needs to look at the agricultural scenario within the province and they will make an assessment and decide whether or not they will approach the federal government to begin AgriRecovery.”
The provincial governments of Ontario and Quebec have been monitoring the conditions, but have yet to declare a state of emergency due to the drought.
While touring an auto-parts manufacturer in Guelph on July 17, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty promised that his government would provide support to farmers if the conditions persisted.
“If you’re ever looking for inspiration, look to farmers and the conditions that they’ve got to overcome on a regular basis,” he told The Guelph Mercury.
Ontario Agriculture Minister Ted McMeekin has been touring affected areas of southern Ontario and met with the Grain Growers of Ontario earlier this week. He is scheduled to be in the town of Renfrew, outside of Ottawa, this week. Last week, Mr. McMeekin warned that the dry weather in the province will lead to higher food prices in the fall.
“There are places where it’s clearly a drought, the crops in many parts of Ontario are showing the signs of distress,” Mr. McMeekin told media last week.
Mark Cripps, who serves as Mr. McMeekin’s press secretary, said that it’s too soon for most crops to be assessed for disaster damage under the Growing Forward risk management programs.
“Until we get to harvest time, where we can properly assess what the damage is, it’s hard for both governments to tell what the damage is,” Mr. Cripps told The Hill Times. “We listen to our stakeholders, and our stakeholders are not coming to us saying that they need disaster relief right now.”
Although Mr. Cripps said that Ontario farmers are not asking for disaster relief as of yet, the National Farmers’ Union of Ontario wrote to Ontario’s agriculture minister on July 16 requesting disaster relief for farmers impacted by the drought, and asking the provincial minister to protect disaster relief programs in Growing Forward 2.
“Our request was to monitor the situation, but begin the process of putting in place a plan to provide disaster relief,” NFU Ontario coordinator Ann Slater said. “As farmers we all think that the rain is coming sometime, but a lot of farmers across the province have gone for almost six weeks without a significant rainfall.”
The United States, meanwhile, is experiencing its worst dry spell in 50 years threatening to kill corn and soybean crops across the Midwest and drive food prices to record highs. More than 1,300 counties across the U.S. have been declared disaster areas as a result of the drought.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said 45 per cent of the corn crops are in poor or very poor condition, up from 38 per cent a week ago, The Canadian Press reported last week. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack declared last week: “I get on my knees every day and I’m saying an extra prayer now. If I had a rain prayer or rain dance I could do, I would do it.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Chris Plecash
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