Ag ministers discuss trade, insurance and emergency support

Saturday, July 20, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

Trade matters were a major topic of discussion at this year’s federal/provincial/territorial agriculture minister’s meeting in Halifax, and as part of those talks the ministers reiterated their support for Canada’s supply management system.

Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz says a huge amount of time was spent on discussing trade and the value it brings to Canadian agriculture. The minister made the comments during a press conference Friday at the conclusion of the meetings.

Nova Scotia Agriculture Minister John MacDonell says the federal agriculture minister has been “unequivocal in his support for supply management,” and provincial ministers are reassured when federal officials are at trade negotiations, such as the current ones involving the European Union, are “actually standing behind supply management.”

Gabrielle Gallant, spokesperson for Ontario Premier and Agriculture Minister Kathleen Wynne, says by email that in light of the increasing extreme weather occurrences “the ministers reaffirmed the need for effective and responsive risk management programs including supply management.”

The importance of trade is reflected in the numbers. Ritz says agricultural sector exports set a new record last year hitting $47.7 billion. Canadian food exports went to 189 different countries.

Canada’s ambitious trade agenda is aimed at maintaining and expanding export opportunities in traditional and emerging markets. Ritz says in the livestock sectors Canada has moved away from a heavy reliance on the U.S. market mainly because of the country of origin labelling law in that country. New export opportunities for livestock farmers include several countries in the Asia-Pacific Rim, where Canada has trade agreements, and the European Union, which is negotiating free trade agreements with Canada.

Barriers to trade were also discussed, such as the U.S. country of origin labelling law and the Russian ban on imported meat from animals originating in Canada and other countries that are raised on the feed additive ractopamine.

Ritz says they’ve had some good discussions with Russian officials. On his way back from a trade mission to China in June, Ritz stopped in Russia and officials there presented an interim report based on inspections by Russian veterinarians of Canadian slaughtering plants.

“We soundly rejected that report and so did the Russians at the end of the day,” he says. “We’re back discussing how we facilitate maintaining that Russian market and giving them the certification they require; that any product coming in is ractopamine-free.”

The minister also talked about insurance tools for farmers. “We had a good, open discussion on changing the business risk management suite (in the national agricultural policy, Growing Forward 2) over time to reflect the growing desire to be more bankable, predictable and timely and of course looking at insurance tools to do that,” he says.

Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Mark Wales says Ontario has already come up with an insurance-based risk management program. “We invented it and we have a high uptake. It’s just Minister Ritz needs to get it.”

Wales was referring to the federal government’s refusal to fund the business risk management program in Ontario for beef, pork sheep, veal, grains and oilseeds and the self-directed risk management program for edible horticulture.

The federal minister also touched on the livestock price insurance proposal currently being offered as a pilot in Alberta. Ritz says a number of provinces are looking at the viability of doing such a program.

Wales, who didn’t attend the meeting in Halifax, says the Alberta program has “very little uptake amongst producers. He (Ritz) is flogging something that most people don’t use.”

Unlike crop insurance and other shared risk programs, “for this one (the Alberta livestock price insurance) the risk is all on the farmers,” he says.

As for what Ontario farmers would think of livestock price insurance, Wales says they really haven’t been introduced to it. When farm groups had their meeting with Wynne before she headed out to Halifax, he says livestock commodity groups reminded her that production insurance for livestock is something that’s long been promised, looked at and needed.

Ritz says more and more farmers sign up every year in the Alberta pilot program. “They’re starting to get the critical mass.”

Alberta Agriculture Minister Verlyn Olson says it’s true that it takes a while for there to be enough “uptake to make it attractive in terms of the cost of the premium.” That’s why Alberta is interested in seeing the program offered in other provinces and with more farmers involved the insurance would be more affordable for everybody. “We feel we’re well on our way to achieving that.”

Ritz says the federal government has developed a chair on insurance at the University of Manitoba lead by Dr. Lysa Porth, a world-renowned expert on insurance, and she will study “what can be done and how it can be done.”

The plan is to provide coverage for livestock, predominately cattle and pork, and it will be price-based insurance and not cost-of-production, which is countervailable, he notes.

The government plans to release a package to industry and other parties within 18 months of the start of Growing Forward 2, which began April 1. There would be six to seven months of consultations followed by implementation. BF