Ontario Raises Risk Management Program Funding by $100M

Jan 29, 2025

The Ontario government is putting another $100 million into its Risk Management Program (RMP) for the province’s farmers.

The increase in the government’s annual funding to $250 million from $150 million was announced Tuesday by Rob Flack, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness. The increase will “support farmers in responding to market challenges while boosting their long-term business confidence and competitiveness,” a government statement said.

The $100 million increase will be phased in over a three-year period, starting with a $30 million increase for the 2025 program year, leading to an annual total of $250 million by the 2027 program year. Producer premiums will remain at 35% of government funding, and the current phase-in of this will continue.

Administered by Agricorp, the Ontario RMP helps producers manage risks beyond their control, like fluctuating costs and market prices.

Today’s investment augments a $50-million increase in annual RMP funding announced by the government back in 2020 and builds on past reforms which allowed unused program funds to be rolled over to future year claims, allowing the program to be most responsive in times of greatest need.

The increase in RMP funding comes at a time with the Canadian agricultural industry in general facing huge uncertainty amid new President Donald Trump’s threat to levy tariffs against American imports of Canadian goods. Trump has said the tariffs could come as early as Feb. 1.

“Our government promised farmers we would continue to expand and enhance RMP, and with this historic investment, we have delivered,” Flack said. “To Ontario’s world-class farmers, know that our government remains focused on strengthening your resilience and competitiveness, no matter what headwinds may come our way.”

Jeff Harrison, chair of Grain Farmers of Ontario, welcomed the increase in RMP funding, calling it a “necessary and welcome” step in helping farmers plan for the coming years with confidence.

Source : Syngenta.ca

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”