Pending changes to Quebec’s ASRA farm income stabilization program will soon come with their own support program.
The provincial agriculture, food and fisheries ministry (MAPAQ) on Thursday telegraphed that it will “soon” announce transitional funding on the order of $100 million.
The funding is to be earmarked for farm operations most impacted by what’s expected to be a three per cent overall trimming of farmers’ ASRA-insured income.
The shift in insured income will follow changes to the way in which the province calculates farmers’ costs of production, announced in November 2009 as part of a reorganization of Quebec farm risk management programming.
Read Also
U.S. livestock: Cattle futures up, hogs mixed
Live and feeder cattle futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Tuesday recovered their losses from Monday. However, lean hog…
The province has said the changes are aimed at improving farmers’ efficiency and response to market signals, adding Thursday that the changes are also essential to the provincial budget.
The recalculation involves setting up new cost-of-production models which will now be based on an average from the top 75 per cent of the province’s farms in terms of performance.
The three per cent cut in insured income means farmers will still be eligible for ASRA but their payments will be refocused on improving farm efficiency, MAPAQ said.
It’s an opportune moment to make such changes, MAPAQ emphasized in its statement Thursday. Hog, grain and oilseed producers have profited from a significant improvement in market prices and generally positive outlooks. In all, the province said, the ag economic situation is favourable.
In restructuring its risk management programs, the government said its aim is to improve farms’ performance as well as to increase support for emerging ag sectors and encourage farm diversification.
The measures had also been recommended in the 2008 Pronovost report of the Commission on the Future of Agriculture and Agri-Food in Quebec (Pronovost) and the 2009 St-Pierre report on farm supports, MAPAQ noted Thursday.
The controversial Pronovost report described the province’s ag and agri-food sector as “literally suffocating” under the weight of its regulations, systems and structures. Its other proposed measures included removing the monopoly of l’Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA) as the province’s farmer organization.
