The Grain Growers of Canada are pushing the Country's agriculture ministers to show leadership on their Businesses Risk Management programs for farmers.
The organization sent a letter to all Canadian ag ministers on Thursday, November 21, calling on them to immediately fix the AgriStability program.
In their letter they say the effectiveness of AgriStability was severely reduced in 2013 when significant cuts were made, including a reduction of coverage of reference margins from 85 to 70 per cent, causing many farmers to withdraw from the program due to its "ineffectiveness".
The Grain Growers are seeking the program to be restored to its former levels.
Specifically, the group says in their letter they would like to see AgriStability coverage immediately adjusted to cover losses starting at 85 per cent of historical reference margins and the elimination of Reference Margin Limits.
Their letter continues, farmers need this change to be available for the 2019 crop year.
"It was critically important to export orientated farmers before harvest," Grain Growers Executive Director, Erin Gowriluk said. "The fact that this has been a challenging harvest has only further compounded the need for having a more effective AgriStability program."
Gowriluk says one of the Federal Agriculture Minister, Marie-Claude Bibeau's first priorities was to send a letter to dairy farmers last week outlining how to access their compensation guaranteed by the government with respect to potential losses through Canada's free trade agreements negotiated with the Trans-Pacific region and the European Union.
"But we really need to hear now from our Government that the export orientated agriculture sector matters, and that they recognize the urgent situation that we find ourselves in currently."
The Grain Growers letter outlines the challenging weather farmers across the country have faced, leaving many producers with low quality grain or unharvested acres.
They say the trying fall is in addition to having every major grain commodity impacted by global trade uncertainty, and farmers seeing prices for many commodities greatly affected due to non-trade barriers and the China- U.S. trade war.
Canada's Federal, Provincial and Territorial agriculture ministers are set to meet in Ottawa on Tuesday, December 17.
Following the meeting, Gowriluk hopes the ministers will announce "comprehensive" and "meaningful" reforms to AgriStability.
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