Eligibility area expansion and deadline extension for 2023 Canada-Saskatchewan Feed Program

Today, Agriculture and Agri-Food (AAFC) Minister Lawrence MacAulay and Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister David Marit announced updates to Saskatchewan’s 2023 Canada-Saskatchewan Feed Program, administered by the Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation (SCIC).

A total of 10 additional designated Rural Municipalities (RMs) are now added to the area eligible for full cost-shared funding of an initial payment up to $150 per head. This expansion responds to the dry conditions that further impacted livestock producers throughout the later months this past fall.

The application deadline is extended to March 15, 2024. The submitted application needs to indicate the number of breeding animals on hand as of August 21, 2023, and kept until January 31, 2024. This deadline extension allows Saskatchewan producers additional time to review and finalize applications with actual extraordinary costs and breeding animal inventory.

A reminder producers will need to submit their receipts or appropriate documents for the extraordinary expenses. Eligible extraordinary expenses include purchased feed, self-hauling or transportation costs for feed or breeding animals, and/or land rented for additional grazing acres or additional feed production. Eligible animal species include beef cattle and other grazing animals, limited to bison, elk, deer, sheep, goats and horses. A Saskatchewan Premises Identification (PID) is required to be eligible for the Program. This Program covers 70% of extraordinary costs related to feed and freight incurred after May 1, 2023, now through to March 15, 2024.

On August 18, 2023, Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Agriculture announced the province committed up to $70 million to assist impacted producers. Federal cost-share funding for Saskatchewan’s AgriRecovery Program is up to $77 million. AgriRecovery is a federal-provincial-territorial disaster relief framework to help agricultural producers with the extraordinary costs associated with recovering from disaster situations. AgriRecovery initiatives are cost-shared on a 60:40 basis between the federal government and participating provinces or territories, as outlined under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP).