CFA Pushes For BRM Reform

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced measures to help farmers deal with the financial impact of COVID-19.

Farm Credit Canada (FCC) will be receiving an extra $5 billion in lending capacity. In addition, a six-month extension will be given on loan repayments through the Advance Payments Program.

Mary Robinson is the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA).

"CFA is highly aware that we don't want to create the sense that loaning more money to agriculture is going to fix this problem," she said. "We've had a pretty great channel of communication with AAFC and talking about BRM. I think we're going to see a whole bunch of things just continue to change and I think we're going to see adjustment to BRM moving forward that are going to continue to change. As we make our way through this crisis, government's made it very clear to us that they consider the production of food to be essential."

Robinson says some of the topics being discussed this week during the industry roundtable are Business Risk Management (BRM) programs, trade, and the availability of containers.