Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz making the livestock announcement in Winnipeg.

 

 

Money for the livestock assistance program announced last week is not "new" money according to the president of Keystone Agricultural Producers.

On Friday, the federal and provincial governments announced up to 18 million dollars would be available to help livestock producers facing feed shortages due to flooding. Provincial Agriculture Minister Stan Struthers has since confirmed that the money is coming from funds originally announced through the Canada-Manitoba Excess Moisture Assistance Program in early July.

"It's not new money. It's money that they have re-profiled to assist the livestock producers. We've been following the original 60 million dollars or so that were announced for excess moisture for grain and oilseed producers [back in July.] We discovered they had spent between 40 and 42 million, so we were wondering what they were going to do with the last third of that funding," says KAP president Rob Brunel. "Now we know where it's going."

"It's good to know that we are going to spend a good portion of the original 60 million on excess moisture, at least," he says. "We're glad to see that number will get used up for the most part."

Brunel notes he's not sure why crop producers did not apply for the full amount available to them.

"It's hard to say why because we weren't involved in how they set it out and how they budgeted for it," he says.

While the excess moisture program was available to producers in all three prairie provinces, only Manitoba grain and oilseed producers were required to pay a 5 percent deductible. KAP had been lobbying to have that deductible refunded.

"Our initial argument was that that 5 percent could have been reimbursed because not all the money for the program had been used," says Brunel. "But of course, we're not privy to what they had planned for all that funding in the initial stages. Our main concern was that there was going to be money left over, and this proves that they'll be using it up."

"We've followed the money trail and it looks like it will all be used for excess moisture issues, so that's a good thing."

~ Tuesday, December 21, 2010 ~