Manitoba Crop Alliance Begins Issuing Cash Advances On Winter Cereals Planted Fall 2023

Dec 26, 2023

Manitoba Crop Alliance (MCA) is pleased to announce it has received approval to start issuing cash advances on winter wheat and fall rye planted in fall 2023 through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Advance Payments Program (APP).

The APP is a federal loan program administered by MCA. It offers Canadian farmers marketing flexibility through interest-free and low-interest cash advances. Under the program, eligible farmers are eligible to receive up to $1,000,000, with the Government of Canada paying the interest on the first $100,000 of the advance for the 2024 program year. Funds can be issued in three to five business days once the application process is complete. MCA’s interest rate on interest-bearing cash advances is competitive with major banks and credit unions.

“MCA strives to offer an unmatched level of customer service to all our cash advance clients,” says MCA chair Robert Misko. “Our friendly and knowledgeable APP staff are always happy to answer questions from farmers and walk them through the application process.”

To apply for an advance under the 2024 program year on winter wheat and fall rye planted in fall 2023, farmers can phone MCA’s office at 1-204-745-6661 or toll-free at 1-877-598-5685 to request an application form.

MCA also continues to process applications for the 2023 program year on more than 35 crop kinds and honey.

“As an organization that represents thousands of farmers across Manitoba, MCA understands how important it can be to have the financial flexibility that a cash advance can offer,” says MCA vice-chair Jonothan Hodson.

“I know other farmers like myself are busy and our financial needs can be complex, which is why we take great pride in the fast turnaround times we offer on all cash advance applications.”

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators