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Weekly CFA producer survey focuses on business risk management programs

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) is conducting a weekly survey among Canadian farmers to identify the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak to the agricultural sector.

Complete the Farmer Survey on COVID-19 (English) for the week of March 23. This survey closes Thursday, Mar. 26, 2020 at 12:00 p.m. EST.

Complete the Farmer Survey on COVID-19 (English) for the week of March 23. This survey closes Thursday, Mar. 26, 2020 at 12:00 p.m. EST.

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The questions within the weekly survey will change with new issues and priorities. The CFA will be part of thrice-weekly roundtable calls with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada during the course of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Mary Robinson, CFA president, said that this week’s roundtable calls will be focused on business risk management (BRM) programs and the economics impacts of COVID-19 on the Canadian agri-food sector.

The focus on business risk management programs comes as the federal government announced that Farm Credit Canada (FCC) will receive support to offer an additional $5 billion in lending capacity to producers, agribusinesses, and food processors.

Some Canadian producers pushed back against the news arguing that more debt capacity isn’t going to help Canadian agriculture long term. The frustration with Canada’s current business risk management programs isn’t new, and updating BRM programs such as Agristability, has been a focus of federal, provincial, and territorial agricultural ministers for a while.

After a poor 2019 season, CFA explained in a January 2020 statement that BRM programs have been in review for nearly three years without meaningful progress or short-term solutions while long-term reforms are created.

Despite this, Robinson remained optimistic and wrote in her March 23 address that, “Last week’s calls, focused on farm labour, had an excellent outcome [and] we hope to see the same positive type of outcomes this week.”