On Tuesday, Agriculture and Agri-Food (AAFC) Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said that the carbon tax associated with grain drying was not significant enough to warrant any specific action.
Bill Campbell is president of Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP).
"It's frustrating, after having gone through last year's harvest and to see the significant numbers that some producers had submitted to us or told us about their carbon tax alone on their grain drying expenses," he commented. "We know that there is yearly carbon tax expenses for livestock producers to heat their barns and their buildings that happen every year."
He talked about the cost competitiveness disadvantage that farmers have at this point in time.
"These costs will only be increasing as time moves forward. We haven't seen clarity with regards to the provincial/federal relationship on the Manitoba Climate and Green Plan. We don't know what the status of that is at this point in time either. Still a lot of uncertainty with just producers paying more as we move forward."
Campbell suggests the grain drying decision is a political position and not necessarily relevant to the costs to which producers are baring.
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