(OTTAWA) – The Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) is welcoming the announcement from last week’s federal-provincial-territorial agriculture ministers’ meeting that programs under the old Agriculture Policy Framework will be extended for one year.  CFA is also pleased the ministers took time to discuss the challenges currently facing the Canadian livestock industry.

“It’s a big relief to hear confirmation that the old programs will be extended. This gives the industry the time we need to work with government on the new programs for Growing Forward so we get them right,” said Bob Friesen, CFA President. “It is also a relief for Canadian livestock producers to hear our ministers are active and engaged in working with the industry to find solutions for that hard-hit sector.”

CFA is expressing concern with the announcement on the AgriRecovery program. This program is intended to provide assistance to producers in the event of serious income disasters that go beyond the capacity for ongoing income stabilization programs to cover. The Ministers agreed to a cost-sharing formula for addressing small-scale regional disaster relief, but apparently made no progress on enabling the program to answer large-scale disasters like the BSE crisis and the current debilitating national income crisis in the hog industry.

CFA is also displeased to see there was no apparent discussion on the subject of regional flexibility. Ensuring provinces are able to tailor some business risk management (BRM) and non-BRM programs to meet their unique regional needs, within the broad national goals, will be an essential component for the success of the next generation of agriculture policy.

“There needs to be better progress on building the disaster component of the BRM suite, and the ministers need to pick up the ball on regional flexibility. These are issues of high priority to the industry,” said Friesen.

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Founded in 1935 to provide Canada's farmers with a single voice in Ottawa, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture is the country's largest farmers' organization. Its members include provincial general farm organizations as well as national and inter-provincial commodity organizations from every province. Through its members, CFA represents over 200,000 Canadian farmers and farm families.