PC Agriculture Critic Urges Min. McMeekin to Address Issues Relating to AgriStability

MPP Ernie Hardeman: There Is No Proper Appeal Process for AgriStability

By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com

Ontario PC Agriculture Critic Ernie Hardeman MPP (Oxford) wrote an open letter to Agriculture Minister Ted McMeekin expressing his concerns that farmers don’t have a proper appeal process if they disagree with decisions related to AgriStability. The open letter urges the minister to respond to his concerns, which he had expressed a month prior to his second letter.

Hardeman explains that there have been a number of complaints that he has received from farmers who felt that Agricrop had made an error in calculating AgriStability for their farm. Through this process, the farmer appealed to the Ontario AgriStability Review Committee (OARC) – which sided with the farmer. However, despite this ruling, Agricorp has ignored the decision made by the committee and has since refused to make changes to their original decision.

Hardeman asks Min. McMeekin to publicly report the number of cases that Agricrop has ignored, commit to review Agricrop’s decisions made on these cases, and also outline the steps he will take to make sure that farmers have a real appeal process that’s fair.