About 850 cattle producers and other ruminant livestock producers in Manitoba’s rain-soaked Interlake region will soon have access to targeted advance payments through AgriStability.
“This federal-provincial program has been implemented to address urgent
issues so this advance will provide financial assistance now,
when producers need it the most,” provincial Agriculture Minister Rosann Wowchuk said in a release Wednesday, referring to AgriStability, the replacement program for CAIS.
“The extreme weather conditions this year have created a
financial hardship for many livestock producers particularly
those in the Interlake and Westlake regions,” she said.
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The Interlake, generally, is the region between Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba; Westlake is between Lake Manitoba and Dauphin Lake. The affected areas, particularly the northern Interlake, took substantial amounts of excess rainfall during the 2008 growing season, preventing most farmers from haying and making many pastures inaccessible.
TAPs will give eligible producers access to over $7 million in advances on their AgriStability payouts, with an average advance expected to be “in the range” of $8,400, the province said.
The TAP is meant to address losses which occurred in the 2008 fiscal period ending after July 31, when most flooding occurred.
To qualify for the Interlake TAP, producers must have sales of 50 per cent or more in the cattle sector or in other ruminant sectors including sheep, goats, bison, deer, elk, llamas, alpacas, horses or PMU mares.
To be eligible, producers must be in any of the rural municipalities (RMs) of St. Laurent, Coldwell, Siglunes, Grahamdale, Fisher, Bifrost, Eriksdale, Armstrong, Gimli, Alonsa, Mossey River, Ethelbert, Mountain South or Lawrence, or in areas of Northern Affairs jurisdiction adjacent to these municipalities, or in a First Nations community within one of those RMs.
AgriStability, cost-shared 60:40 by the federal and provincial governments respectively, is meant to help farmers deal with drops in income by providing assistance when their margins fall below average.
