By Curtis Galbraith

Agriculture

Dreeshen says province doing “everything it can to help farmers”

Aug 16, 2021 | 6:00 AM

Alberta Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen said during a visit to Grande Prairie last Wednesday that only about 20 per cent of the Alberta crop is in good shape because of the drought.

“It’s obviously going to be a really low yield this year and with AFSC, they’ve actually predicted (there) probably (would) be about a billion dollars in crop insurance and pasture and forage insurance payouts to the industry.”

Dreeshan says the province is doing everything it can to help farmers and ranchers through the drought.

He says the province recently announced $340 million for AgriRecovery. This is a 60-40 split between the federal and provincial governments.

UPDATE: Ottawa ups AgriRecovery to $500 million to aid farmers dealing with extreme weather

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He adds this amounts to a $200 per head payment to counter US subsidies and keep feed from being shipped to the States.

“When you look at insurance (production insurance), is one of the best you can do to help out both industries.”

“We actually this year cut crop, pasture, and forage insurance premiums by 20 per cent and we actually saw 400 more farmers and ranchers take up insurance and actually 1400 farmers and ranchers increased their insurance coverage.”

Dreeshen welcoming tax changes on farm transition

Dreeshen also says a lot of farmers and ranchers wanted to see Bill C-208 for a long time.

This will make it easier for farmers to pass their operations on to their kids and grandkids.

Under former guidelines, taxes were higher for selling a farm to a family member than they were when selling to a third party.

“They wanted to be able to get that fairness in the tax code and that it seemed ridiculous that you were penalized to actually transfer or to sell your operation to a family member (more) than you would be to a stranger.”

“Getting that fairness is something that, for a long time, I’ve heard from industry that they want to make sure that they could have that.”

Bill C-208 received royal assent in late June.