The New Brunswick and Yukon governments officially agreed Wednesday to extend funding for some federal/provincial Agricultural Policy Framework (APF) programming in their provinces.
Both the province and the territory announced they will extend their share of funding up until April 1, 2009 at the latest.
The extension applies to four ag programming pillars of the five-year APF other than the business risk management (BRM) pillar: renewal, innovation, environment and food safety.
The federal/provincial APF on agriculture programs’ funding and delivery was developed under the Chretien government and launched in 2003. It included the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization (CAIS) program for business risk management.
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Canada’s agriculture ministers agreed in principle in November last year to seek approval from their provincial governments to extend their commitments to the near-expired APF agreement on the four non-BRM pillars.
The federal government has already granted Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada approval to extend the federal share of the funding while Ottawa and the provinces work on Growing Forward, the APF’s replacement framework. Five other provinces have already got approval from their governments for the APF extensions.
As for the BRM pillar, that’s covered under the first pillar of the Growing Forward program, which is already in place and includes the AgriStability and AgriInvest programs to replace CAIS.
“Continuing to provide the full suite of (APF) programs in the Yukon will allow for a smooth transition to Growing Forward and will ensure certainty for our farmers and all our partners,” Yukon Resources Minister Archie Lang said in a federal news release Wednesday.
The extension on the non-BRM APF pillars “gives us the time we need to ensure farmers have the voice they deserve in program design,” federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said, referring to ongoing consultations with farmers and farm groups on Growing Forward.
The ag ministers, in a joint statement after a conference call last week, said they’re “committed to having a final agreement framework in place for Growing Forward by their annual conference” in Quebec City July 8-11.