Ottawa, Ontario – This year, Canada’s farmers have been hit hard by extreme weather, including the drought across western Canada and in northern Ontario, and the flooding and landslides that struck British Columbia. Despite these challenges, many stepped up in solidarity to help their fellow farmers and ranchers from across the country.
During an event today with President of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) Mary Robinson, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, announced an investment of up to $4 million towards the CFA’s Hay West 2021 initiative.
Through Hay West 2021, the CFA is connecting Eastern farmers with Western and northern Ontario farmers in need of feed. The Government of Canada and corporate sponsors are helping to offset the freight costs to transport hay between those farmers. In September, the government approved $1 million, which has helped transport approximately 150 shipments (5.6 million pounds) of hay to feed 16,750 cattle. Over the coming months, up to $3 million in additional funding will continue to support the movement of hay across the country.
Hay West is a beacon of solidarity during a year that has been marked by extreme weather events affecting the lives of Canadian farmers, who are on the front lines of climate change. In response to this year’s historic drought – the worst in more than 60 years – the Government of Canada and the governments of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario came together to make available up to $825 million in cost-shared AgriRecovery disaster relief funding. This funding has already helped thousands of livestock producers, particularly cattle producers, cover the extraordinary costs they faced this year, including to obtain livestock feed, transportation and water. The federal and provincial governments also made changes to adjust the farmer income supports under the AgriStability program and, in the Prairies, to adjust the AgriInsurance program so that drought-damaged crops could be used for feed.
The solidarity of Canadian agriculture can also be seen in British Columbia, where 30 farms are still under evacuation orders and thousands more have been devastated by the effects of flooding and landslides, which have submerged crops and affected the welfare of livestock. Farmers and their communities, with the help of emergency forces, have succeeded in saving thousands of animals and helping many farmers with their urgent needs. Both the federal and provincial governments are currently fast tracking a joint assessment through the AgriRecovery framework to provide support to producers through a disaster relief package.
The Government of Canada is committed to the long-term sustainability of the agriculture sector, and building its resilience to extreme weather events. In the past year it has announced over $550 million in new programming, including the Agricultural Climate Solutions and Agricultural Clean Technology programs, to help farmers and agri-food businesses implement sustainable practices and technologies that help to mitigate climate change.
Source : Government of Canada