The recent federal review of the Business Risk Management programs proposed under the Agricultural Policy Framework (APF) does not address the needs of Ontario farmers, Minister of Agriculture and Food Helen Johns said today.
“I am proposing our own Ontario-specific review that will evaluate the proposed federal program from the perspective of Ontario farm families. It will add to what is an incomplete federal study from an Ontario perspective,” she said.
The decision comes after consultation by Johns with Ontario farm leaders and pointed criticism of the federal study for its limitations.
Ontario will contract with the George Morris Centre to conduct more comprehensive work on the Ontario segment of the current package of safety net programs and their relationship to the proposed APF programs. The report will be ready both for farm leaders and the minister on June 27, 2003.
“The farm community wants to be sure that the new programs are more effective than the existing safety net package, and has pleaded with the federal government to delay implementation of the APF programs until such time as that concern has been fully addressed,” Johns said.
The federal government has not only refused to delay implementation, she said, but this recent review of the programs “has not addressed the very real anxieties of the agriculture sector, how existing programs are affected, and whether they could be redesigned to better fit Ontario’s needs.”
Because strengthening the agriculture sector is the purpose of these risk management programs (which are in effect for the next five years), making certain, through third-party review, that the federal APF approach augments rather than undermines industry sustainability simply makes sound business sense, she explained.
~Derek Nelson~
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food