Agricultural producers can now receive $350,000 interest-free with a FarmCash advance!

Jun 01, 2023

As of May 8, 2023, western Canadian producers may receive the first $350,000 interest-free on FarmCash advances of up to $1 million, a $100,000 increase to the interest-free limit for the remainder of the 2023 Advance Payments Program (APP) year. Highly welcomed by producers, the change proposed in Budget 2023 and announced today by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Minister Bibeau is a temporary measure to support producers facing cash flow pressures and increased inflation on fuel, fertilizer and feed over the 2023 growing season.

Today’s announcement comes nearly one year after the Minister announced that the interest-free portion of advances would be temporarily increased from $100,000 to $250,000 until the end of the 2023 program year. Eligible producers could save an additional $3,600 in interest costs on average for the year through the latest additional increase from $250,000 to $350,000.

The additional changes to the APP in recent years are striking a chord with producers and are making on-farm differences to their long-term profitability.

“FarmCash is experiencing tremendous growth and the sheer volume of producers applying reiterates the demand for the Alberta Wheat Commission to provide the program and support western Canada’s agriculture industry in light of increased inflation,” says Greg Sears, Alberta Wheat Commission chair and farmer near Sexsmith, Alberta. “We are pleased to see this additional change to the program that will help ensure producers of all sizes of operations and of a variety of commodities can get their growing season off to the right start.”

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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