About 2,500 Quebec farms, mostly in the livestock sector, are expected to benefit from a new five-year, $100 million fund for them to adapt to changes in the province’s ag income stabilization program (ASRA).
The new program, for which the provincial ag department said last week to expect an announcement, is meant to benefit those that will have to restructure their operations in order to remain sustainable and competitive, as the province reworks its formula for ASRA payments.
The ASRA recalculations involve new cost-of-production models which will be based on an average from the top 75 per cent of the province’s farms in terms of performance, rather than from all Quebec farms.
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That new formula is expected to translate to a three per cent cut overall in farmers’ ASRA-insured income, the province said last week. It means farmers will still be eligible for ASRA but their payments will be refocused on improving farm efficiency, MAPAQ said.
Agriculture Minister Laurent Lessard said Monday that the $100 million is budgeted for “family” farm businesses with small volumes of production, particularly in the lamb, beef cattle and hog sectors.
While not mentioning farmer protests several weeks ago against the province’s proposals for ASRA, Lessard reiterated in Monday’s release that the province still considers agriculture fundamental to Quebec’s collective wealth and an economic driver for its rural areas.
He noted a $305 million boost in the province’s ASRA budget, to $630 million, for the program’s total client base of about 16,000 eligible farms.
“Inevitable”
The additional $100 million in adaptation funding, he said, is to take the form of four separate programs for farmers facing “financial difficulties” due to changes in ASRA. They include:
- support for business counselling services, to help farmers improve their operations, business plans and finances, covering 90 per cent of eligible costs and available until the end of March 2014;
- a $35 million interest relief program for loans to farms in financial difficulty while in mid-restructuring, to run until the end of March 2015;
- a modernization support program, also running to the end of March 2014, allowing farmers to undergo financial analyses, set up action plans and get provincial support worth up to 40 per cent of their eligible project costs up to a maximum $20,000 per farm; and
- a competitiveness support program, available to the end of March 2015, also allowing farmers to undergo financial analyses, set up plans of action and get support for up to 40 per cent of eligible project costs to a maximum $20,000 per farm.
Noting that some areas of the province see more specific obstacles, the modernization and competitiveness programs also come with a list of “priority” regions and municipalities, in which farms are eligible to get back up to 50 per cent of project costs, to a maximum $25,000.
In this way, Lessard said, farmers can boost both their technical farm management and their business management skills, and invest the funding to boost their efficiency or diversify their production.
Monday’s announcement, he said, comes with a “clear message:” Quebec believes in agriculture, but it’s “inevitable” that the ag sector must move to renew itself and start drawing more of its revenue from the market.
