Agri-Stability, one of three major federal-provincial, cost-shared farm safety net programs, has “serious problems” and needs to be fixed, according to the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS).
On Wednesday, APAS released the results of a survey of producers about their experiences with three business risk management (BRM) programs under Growing Forward 2: Agri-Stability, Agri-Invest and Agri-Insurance (crop insurance).
The survey polled Saskatchewan farmers and ranchers about their use of these farm programs and how well the programs meet their needs.
“The survey results indicate serious problems with Agri-Stability, which the federal and provincial governments need to address,” said APAS president Norm Hall in a press release.
AgriStability is supposed to help farm operations facing large margin declines caused by production loss, increased costs or market conditions. The program uses margins to determine benefits for producers by comparing the program margin to the reference margin when determining whether the producer is in a benefit position.
Agri-Stability scored lowest among the programs in terms of both adequacy of program coverage and design. Only 18 per cent of respondents felt the program benefited their operations now or would in the future. Another 55 per cent of respondents said they could not predict the level of coverage provided at the start of each production season.
In fact, 35 per cent of respondents indicated they had already withdrawn from the Agri-Stability program.
Source : Leaderpost