The Federal Government says it is helping farmers of supply-managed products to withstand some of the financial pressures of recent trade agreements.
Bay of Quinte MP Neil Ellis says the remaining $1.4 billion to be handed out to supply-managed dairy, poultry and egg farmers will give some relief after concessions made in trade agreements with Europe and Trans-Pacific partners.
“It’s basically concessions made through trade agreements. So basically market access concessions that the sectors have given up, so the government is compensating them for lost market share.”
Under the new agreement, farmers would get payouts based on their production quotas over the next three years, with the government continuing negotiations about “full and fair compensation” for the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement as well.
Ellis says it’s always important to support Canada’s agriculture sector, but even moreso now, as farmers try to battle back from the pandemic.
“Our supply chain has survived COVID, we’re going into the second phase and we’re depending on our supply chain to provide good food for our tables.”
The new funding is in addition to $345 million already handed out between December of 2019 and January 2020, when the funding was originally announced and expected to be spread out over eight years.
Now, Ellis says based on their milk quota, dairy farmers will get cash payments of $468 million in 2020-21, $469 million in 2021-22 and $468 million in 2022-23. The government says that works out to a direct payment of about $38,000 a year to the owner of a farm with 80 cows.
The Feds have also launched a 10-year program to support Canada’s 4,800 chicken, egg and turkey farmers, who will split close to $691 million.
