Barlow Says COVID-19 Program Funding Slow To Roll Out

The Federal Conservative's Shadow Minister for Agriculture says the Liberal Government seems to be good at making announcements but that's where it ends. 

 

John Barlow says when it actually comes to allocating the funding and the program logistics for some of the Liberal's COVID-19 programs they've failed.

 

He says when it comes to the Agriculture sector a lot of that money still has not been rolled out.

 

"You know, whether it's the $9 million for jobs in agriculture, 700 jobs in agriculture sector. We've seen now the estimates of the budget, that money is not in there. You know, there's 10s of millions of dollars missing that we can't identify where it's coming from. So, you know, even to say now that farmers should be able to qualify for the emergency business account. What we're hearing from farmers is they haven't been able to access those funds from their financial institutions."

Video: USDA Feb Crop Report a WIN for Soybeans + 1 Year Trade Truce Extension

USDA took Trumps comments that China would buy more U.S. soybeans seriously and headline news that the U.S./China trade truce would be extended when Trump/Xi meet in the first week of April was a BIG WIN for soybeans this week! 2026 “Mini” U.S. ethanol boom thanks to 45Z + China’s ban of phosphates from Feb. – August of 2026 will not help lower fertilizer prices anytime soon! 30 mmt of Chinese corn harvest is of poor quality and maybe a technical breakout in wheat futures.

*Apologies! Where we talk about the latest CFTC update as of 10th Feb 2026, managed money funds covered their net short position in canola to the tune of +42,746 week-on-week to flip to net long 145 contracts and not (as we mistakenly said) +90,009 wk/wk to 47,408.