Barlow Says COVID-19 Program Funding Slow To Roll Out

The Federal Conservative's Shadow Minister for Agriculture says the Liberal Government seems to be good at making announcements but that's where it ends. 

 

John Barlow says when it actually comes to allocating the funding and the program logistics for some of the Liberal's COVID-19 programs they've failed.

 

He says when it comes to the Agriculture sector a lot of that money still has not been rolled out.

 

"You know, whether it's the $9 million for jobs in agriculture, 700 jobs in agriculture sector. We've seen now the estimates of the budget, that money is not in there. You know, there's 10s of millions of dollars missing that we can't identify where it's coming from. So, you know, even to say now that farmers should be able to qualify for the emergency business account. What we're hearing from farmers is they haven't been able to access those funds from their financial institutions."

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.