Farmers hit by excess moisture in Manitoba’s northern Interlake region in 2008 and 2009 can expect to share over $2.5 million in payouts starting next week from the federal/provincial AgriRecovery program.
Eligible growers in the northern part of the region between Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba include those in the rural municipalities of Grahamdale, Siglunes, Eriksdale, Fisher, Bifrost, Coldwell, Armstrong, Gimli, and St. Laurent, the First Nation of Dog Creek, and Northern Affairs areas and First Nations communities.
Growers in that region who took part in the 2009 AgriInsurance program will get $15 per unseeded acre toward the “extraordinary costs” of maintaining affected fields after two consecutive years of flooding.
Read Also
Agriculture chemical company embraces regenerative farming
Johnstone’s Grain sees the sale of regenerative agriculture products as the future
Producers are eligible if they took part in AgriInsurance and had unseeded acreage in 2009 — thus, no applications are needed and eligible growers can expect to get payments automatically starting next week.
“This assistance will help North Interlake farmers off-set the cost of restoring their crop land to full production in time for spring seeding,” area MP James Bezan said in a release Friday.
The AgriRecovery funding, cost-shared 60:40 by the federal and Manitoba governments, is meant to work “in concert” with insurance programs offered by Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp. (MASC), provincial Agriculture Minister Stan Struthers said in the same release.
The program “responds to the need for financial assistance that was identified by northern Interlake producers during consultation meetings,” he said.
A number of producers concentrated in the eligible area had crop production losses in 2008, with the land being too wet to seed in 2009.
The program is in addition to assistance available through AgriInsurance, AgriStability, the federal Advance Payments Program (APP) and MASC’s lending programs, the governments said.
“While assistance from existing business risk management programs has been substantial, this program will help producers manage the back-to-back costs that are not covered by the programs.”
