Agriculture Committee on May 5th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

We'll go to Mr. Epp for five minutes.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I'll direct my questions to Ms. Porth.

From your testimony, I gather that you're proposing that a private insurance structure not compete with the provincial offerings but would be more in a complementary setting to it. Is that correct?

If I understood it correctly, further to that, perhaps we can measure it with a shift in public resources more toward the catastrophic level, i.e., the provincial offerings. Are you suggesting any subsidization of the private offerings, or is it totally private?

[Lysa Porth]

Exactly.

I think one thing that's really lacking in Canada is choice. We've heard that from producers. Part of it is that we're relying on these BRM programs to do everything. As the risk gap increases, those programs can't keep up. Even though we keep putting money into the program, it's not enough.

If we look at other jurisdictions, the U.S. is a great example. They have a very coordinated public-private ecosystem. That's really what we're missing here in Canada. That's a kind of innovation flywheel around.... Even with just the last question and the last speaker, we talked about the regionality of risk. If you have the private sector come in, that's where you get the innovation in terms of products, technology and whatnot.

Today what's preventing that is the way the subsidy is allocated. Let's assume we can do it as cost neutral. The way we're doing it is sixty-forty up the entire risk stack, so it becomes very difficult to coordinate buying so much public insurance and adding in a little bit of private insurance.

Really, it's around creating an optimal portfolio of risk management. That's the part I would encourage AAFC and the broader group to really consider. I don't think it's that big of a change to facilitate that. It's just our current structure that's getting in the way.

Did I answer that question?

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I'm going to jump in.

One of the aspects of the public systems is that they're universally offered to the crop or whatever across the province or the region. Are you envisioning the private top-ups—I hate to use the word “top-ups”—or the offerings to also be universally available?

[Lysa Porth]

Yes. However, we don't need to take anything away. Those farms that don't want to buy private top-ups or other solutions out there can exist in the way they always buy their risk management.

I would reframe it to say that the private sector is very good at risk underwriting. That will enable us to move from such a reactive to more of a proactive system, and it answers what Karen said in her last response around creating an incentivized system. Farms that are de-risking will see themselves eligible for higher coverage, more premium discounts, and those types of things. I think it's really around the ecosystem that doesn't exist.

I would add one more comment: that it is complex. Insurance is very complex, especially how it fits together. What we are missing in Canada is that advisory and that service that we have not developed here. We're asking government to do everything, and the private sector has an important role to play as well.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

It's very complex, and you were getting into some of that complexity when you talked about underwriting. I'm assuming, in the private models you're contemplating, that reinsurance is a stabilizing factor in your background. Can you answer yes or no to that, and if it's so, how?

[Lysa Porth]

Yes.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Also, with regard to the public sector, I know that some of the provincial crop insurance agencies use the private sector reinsurance, which dramatically helps their stability. Could you envision that potentially also in the public sector?

[Lysa Porth]

Yes. Agriculture is a volatile business. In managing that kind of systemic risk in extreme years, reinsurance plays a very important part, whether it's from a Crown perspective or whether it's a private insurance carrier bearing that risk. There's technology and capabilities today to underwrite risk to an individual level and, from an actuarial standpoint, to price risk to that true cost over time. We're not doing that in Canada. It's overly simplified, and it's backward-looking, which is another reason that we feel like it's not keeping up.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I'm going to jump in because I have so many more questions for you.

AgriInsurance insures yield. AgriStability is insuring margin. There's talk of revenue insurance. Is your AI and geospatial modelling, even down at the producer level, contemplating products that might address yield, margin, revenue or all three?

[Lysa Porth]

It can do everything. That's the ability. The Agi3 technology is one of the only ones globally that can actually price down to the field level. The structure of the program doesn't matter, whether it's yield-based, revenue-based or margin-based. We're doing that today already. We're even doing forward contracting insurance. The point is—

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Are you—

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much. I'm going to stop you there.

We'll go to MP Dandurand for five minutes.

Thank you.

[Marianne Dandurand, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you.

I want to thank the witnesses for being with us today to discuss the business risk management programs. They play an essential role for farmers, since private insurance coverage can be hard to access. The government has a duty to support farmers to ensure food security.

My questions are mainly for the Farmers for Climate Solutions representatives.

You raised a very interesting point about knowledge-sharing capacity. You talked about the relationship with agronomists in Quebec. As far as business risk management programs are concerned, I think sharing information is one of the best ways to reduce risk.

Do you see opportunities to integrate better mentoring and information-sharing into the business risk management programs, so that farmers are less vulnerable to the various risks affecting their resilience?

[Karen Ross]

Thank you for that great question.

Farmers for Climate Solutions runs Canada's widest-reaching program, offering tools to farmers to build resilience and stewardship in the face of climate change. We are shocked by the results.

We started this program four years ago, hoping to enrol 10,000 farmers over four seasons, and what we landed on was almost 35,000 farmers. There's a serious interest in more knowledge around risk protection because farmers and ranchers are facing much more volatility today. Farmers and ranchers are driven by self-reliance. It's a big part of our values as private business owners.

What's even more impressive is that we just got our five-year stats in, and 80% of producers, as a direct result of taking our program, have adopted a new practice. There's a real, on-the-ground impact from learning something new. These are the kinds of practices I'm talking about. Programs like Alberta's are now rewarding them because they lead to better risk-reducing outcomes.

Lysa just mentioned that there's been a disconnect between those risk-reducing practices and how they're interpreted within our risk management programs. One attempt now is that AgriInvest is linked to the environmental farm plan. The environmental farm plan has many limitations. We'd love to see improved tools for farmers and ranchers to learn more substantially about risk preparedness and to overcome barriers to adoption.

That's an example of the direction we could go in. Beyond that, as conditions change for qualifications for different insurance programs at the performance layer that Lysa's talking about to better encourage proactive risk building, we need to ensure that producers have the right information to be able to meet those new conditions and to benefit from those rewards of reduced premiums or enhanced coverage.

[Geneviève Grossenbacher]

You brought up Quebec, so I'd like to highlight two important initiatives in Quebec. I talked about them earlier. Agriclimat is one. It's really the type of program that the next agricultural policy framework should support. A range of advisory services are available to farmers, along with funding support, so that they don't have to cover the full cost of the support provided. That is something that can really strengthen the support on the ground.

Currently, qualified agronomists are desperately needed on the ground. The good news, though, is that it doesn't take a lot of training for those agronomists to be able to support farmers. Access to the training required to provide that support is the kind of initiative the government should promote.

[Marianne Dandurand, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you.

What performance indicators should we apply to business risk management programs, so they take into account that resilience and those activities?

Ms. Porth, my question is for the Farmers for Climate Solutions representatives, but I'd also like to know your position on the matter. I think I have about a minute left.

[Karen Ross]

I'll share that time with you, Ms. Porth.

Ultimately, Lysa and Farmers for Climate Solutions are embarking on a new partnership to explore this very idea. Lysa, I'll pass it over to you quickly, but part of the issue we're facing is that the kinds of pilots we're seeing in Alberta, as an example, remain small-scale because we don't have enough data. We need to better understand modern-day risk profiles to better understand the performance indicators we need to pay more attention to. We think they're outcomes-based—things like soil carbon are obvious, because they support things like water management—but we need much more information, which we're hoping to generate together over the next six months.

Please stay tuned.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

We're going to have to stop there and turn it over to the Bloc for two and a half minutes.

Mr. Lemire.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think we are talking a lot about a crack that many farmers, especially small farmers, are falling through today.

AgriRecovery draws a lot of criticism because of how long farmers have to wait before they get the support they need. On top of that, the framework was designed to help farmers deal with exceptional circumstances, but those exceptional circumstances have become less and less exceptional and more and more common in recent years. I'm talking about market closures, wars and extreme weather events. We are seeing all of those things more and more.

Ms. Grossenbacher and Ms. Ross, how do we make sure that the programs provide the timely support producers need?

[Geneviève Grossenbacher]

I think it's just about organizing the system to roll out the help more quickly. I'll give you an example. I have friends in Quebec who practise crop diversification. In 2023, they experienced $350,000 in losses because of flooding. In 2025, they still hadn't received a payment. They had to rely on their community to help cover the losses; they did fund-raising and used all their savings to save the farm one year. In 2025, they were hit by more climate events, and the wildfires took a severe toll. Again, they managed to get by. They got their first AgriRecovery payment, but the last time I checked, they still hadn't received their second payment. All that to say it's just about making sure that the payments go out much more quickly.

Did you want to add anything, Ms. Ross?

[Karen Ross]

It's also about having a better balance. Farmers definitely need a faster response

when disaster strikes. On the other hand, we also need upfront support to ensure that, whenever possible, we're prepared before disaster strikes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

You also talked about the importance of investments in research, innovation and climate adaptation, which play a central role in best practices. What kind of program or investment should the government prioritize in that regard?

[Karen Ross]

Nobody has farmed in climate change before. Climate change impacts are predictable. They will become more severe. That's known. What we don't fully know is how to do our best innovating within these new circumstances. Science is what's going to keep us on our toes. Otherwise, we're simply bracing for what we don't know.

What we need is more science in new farming. New farming is new farming in climate change. Programs like living labs and Swift Current region's organic research had applied results that our farmers and our networks were using every season to improve production. We'd like to keep seeing those.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you.

Thanks to our witnesses for joining us today. That was very informative. We appreciate your time.

For the committee, we have a couple of things we need to figure out.

The press release for the science study was issued to everyone. Can we issue that? Are we good?