The federal and provincial ag ministers are meeting next month
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) has assembled a task force to prepare industry recommendations for the federal and provincial governments’ next policy framework.
This framework, which comes into effect in 2023, will replace the current five-year, $3 billion Canadian Agricultural Partnership.
Getting started on these recommendations now will help position Saskatchewan well for the upcoming discussions, said Todd Lewis, president of APAS.
“We thought now would be a good time for farmers to begin talking about what they’d like to see in the next framework,” he told Farms.com. “The members of the task force represent a good cross section of farmers across the province.”
The members of the task force are:
- Chair: Bill Prybylski – APAS Vice-President (RM of Garry #245)
- Norm Hall – Former APAS President (RM of Emerald #227)
- Scott Owens – Director of District 6 (RM of Eldon #471)
- Brent Freedman – APAS Representative (RM of Willow Creek #458)
- Trevor Green – APAS Representative (RM of Moosomin #121)
- Devon Walker – APAS Representative (RM of Wilton #472)
One area of focus for the organization is the suite of business risk management programs available to farmers.
It’s time these programs received updates to ensure they work properly for producers, Lewis said.
“We know there’s really low participation rates in AgriStability in Saskatchewan,” he said. “A lot of producers aren’t involved with it because they see it as an (unreliable) program that is very cumbersome and slow to react to the needs of producers.”
Another item the group will examine is crop insurance.
Studying how crop insurance operates in other provinces will help Saskatchewan when discussing the next framework, Lewis said.
“There’s always changes to crop insurance,” he said. “Let’s compare how crop insurance programs here compare to ones in Manitoba and Alberta to see how we can improve our program here.”
Keystone Agricultural Producers in Manitoba will be putting together a similar group, but not specific to the next policy framework, Graham Schellenberg, manager of communications and government relations, told Farms.com in an email.
The federal minister of agriculture and his or her provincial and territorial counterparts will meet virtually in November.