Evidence of meeting #5 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agristability.
A recording is available from Parliament.
First Vice-President, Union des producteurs agricoles
Yes, it is a fairly major factor. We need an ad hoc program that allows us to respond. We mentioned the Americans, who have made investments in this regard. For example, American soybean and canola growers received compensation of up to $60 a ton because of the conflicts.
We need a similar system to help us deal with exceptional events. Our risk management programs are there to respond to normal market events, but we also need an ad hoc program to respond to exceptional events.
Conservative
Richard Lehoux Conservative Beauce, QC
I am glad you spoke about the COVID-19 issue, which could have major repercussions. Many immigrant workers come to work in farm businesses in Canada.
What measures could be taken to counter the effects of COVID-19, for instance?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Unfortunately, your time is up.
Mr. Ellis, you're on for up to six minutes.
Liberal
Neil Ellis Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON
Martin, and maybe anybody else around here, we've been hearing that the uptake of AgriStability is 31%. Do you know what the uptake was before the changes were made, dropping it from 85% to 70%?
First Vice-President, Union des producteurs agricoles
We do not have those figures right now, but we could send them to you.
Coordinator, Business Economics, Union des producteurs agricoles
It was much higher than 30%.
Liberal
Neil Ellis Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON
Was it 30% before the changes? I was looking for the number before the changes.
Coordinator, Business Economics, Union des producteurs agricoles
I do not have the figures for the period before the changes.
Liberal
Neil Ellis Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON
Thank you, Katie.
Katie, you're a national organization and I guess you've probably been meeting with provinces. I guess you've been mentioning the same thing to provinces and I'm wondering how they have been responding to your requests. If you met with provinces right across Canada, are there are any friendly provinces out there that are also willing to look at this?
President, National Farmers Union
The Government of British Columbia recently made an effort to top up their AgriStability contribution in recognition of the challenges that farmers are facing right now. Not every province is in a fiscal position to be able to unilaterally make that change. I think that farmers across the country are absolutely looking for this, but I can't speak for all the provincial governments.
Liberal
Neil Ellis Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON
You mentioned B.C. When did they change theirs? Was it recently?
President, National Farmers Union
The announcement was made at the beginning of February.
Liberal
Neil Ellis Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON
Okay, so there is no uptake, and it's all new. It's a new program.
Liberal
Neil Ellis Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON
Okay.
To Patty, you mentioned the need to take a fresh look at this, whether that means blowing it up or... You mentioned AgriStability and AgriInvest. I just wonder what you thought about whether any of the programs were working and what they were working at, and some of the changes you mentioned.
General Manager, Keystone Agricultural Producers
AgriInsurance has great uptake, certainly in Manitoba, where there is a program available for most commodities.
We have been throwing around the idea of whether there is a way to make that program a bit more responsive to changes in income. It's a program that's well understood, and it's fairly easy as a farmer to participate in it. The uptake rate is—I want to say—85%.
That's one idea.
There's also AgriInvest, where, rather than specific constraints about when a farmer would receive a payment, a farmer could make that decision himself or herself. The feedback we have from our members is that the matching is a bit too low. It certainly is an under-subscribed program that, really, farmers should be paying more attention to than they do.
We would like to look at that. Is that a program that we can enhance, or that can be enhanced, to give farmers a tool to cover their own income risks?
Liberal
Neil Ellis Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON
Okay. Thank you.
I think the last witnesses talked about paperwork, and I think you mentioned paperwork also, Katie.
What are your suggestions for simplifying this or doing a better process on this?
President, National Farmers Union
I think there definitely needs to be a streamlining of the paperwork and a better alignment with tax preparation, especially for young and new entrants. Any extra paperwork can be really challenging when you're starting out and, again, don't necessarily have all of the assets to access crop insurance and such. It can be really stressful, so streamlining would definitely be good.
We would also like to see an expansion of criteria that would allow better access for smaller, diversified operations, which tend to be more and more of the new operations. It can be really challenging to access these programs when you have a smaller amount of different production types.
Liberal
Neil Ellis Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON
How do we make sure that all producers know about the programs? I think that part of it, too, is that we have so many programs. Through your organization or other organizations, do the farmers actually know the programs that exist, and do you communicate with them?
President, National Farmers Union
We have done surveys of our young members. There is definitely a lack of easy-to-understand information out there, so better communication would certainly help.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My thanks to the witnesses joining us in person or by videoconference. We appreciate you making yourselves available.
Ms. Rocher, you just mentioned that small businesses could be better protected. Do you have in mind any specific improvements that we could make to the AgriStability and AgriInvest programs in order to bring help directly to smaller-scale farming?
General Manager, Keystone Agricultural Producers
Our members don't have the same kind of focus on the smaller productions per se, but we are very much interested in programs for our younger farmers, who are often smaller-scale producers.
We just did a series of focus group sessions with them. We wanted to understand what their issues were. They take over decision-making for a couple of small fields attached to their parents' operation, and they look to grow that, but as part of their parents' operation they can't access the business risk management programs themselves, so it takes a lot longer for them to build up their credibility and their knowledge of these programs.
I appreciated the comments about communicating the availability of programs to younger farmers.
The other thing we heard from them is that they would like a little bit more training around farm management as it relates to accessing programs, doing the paperwork and looking at the whole operation from a farm business management point of view.
For us, when we think of small farmers, we're really talking about the younger farmers who are attached to a bigger operation and who are looking to expand. How do we make sure they have the knowledge and education, and how do we make sure that the program recognizes them and their role as a smaller part of a larger group?