Interest-Free Portion of Advance Payment Program Bumped Up to $250,000

Mar 26, 2024

It’s not all the way back to where it was last year, but the interest-free portion of the 2024 federal Advance Payment Program has been raised from its original level.

The federal government announced Monday the interest-free portion of the program has been set at $250,000 for the current year.

Originally fixed at $100,000, the upper limit on the interest-free portion was raised by Agriculture Canada to $250,000 in 2022 and to $350,000 in 2023 due to rising interest rates and input costs. However, the interest-free portion of the program was quietly returned by the government to $100,000 for the 2024 growing season – a move that spurred an outcry among farm organizations that maintained producers still needed the financial break a higher limit would provide.

In a news release today, Ottawa said raising the interest-free portion to $250,000 from $100,000 will save nearly 12,000 participating producers almost $5,000 each in interest costs on average, for a total savings of up to $58.7 million on a nationwide basis.

The Advance Payments Program gives producers easy access to low-cost cash advances of up to $1 million, based on the expected value of their agricultural product.

“With this support at the start of the production cycle, farmers will be able to purchase important inputs to support production this growing season,” the government release said, adding it will also provide marketing flexibility by allowing producers to sell their agricultural products at the most opportune time, rather than just when they need cash.

Under the Advance Payments Program, cash advances are calculated based on up to 50% of the anticipated market value of eligible agricultural products that will be produced or are in storage. The program is delivered through 27 industry-led associations.

Source : Syngenta.ca

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.