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Federal and Provincial Governments Act to Help Flood Damaged Farmers |
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Friday, 09 July 2010 |
 Saskatoon, SK- On Thursday, July 8th, federal Minister of Agriculture, Gerry Ritz responded to the recent record flooding in the Canadian prairies by announcing substantial relief for farmers dealing with income and production losses through the AgriRecovery program. The governments of Canada, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Saskatchewan will make $450 million available to help farmers take immediate steps to restore and protect their damaged cropland.
“Governments are responding with the largest and fastest AgriRecovery relief package to date to make sure farmers can weather the storm and continue to deliver their high quality grains to kitchen tables in Canada and around the world,” said Minister Ritz.
The joint AgriRecovery response will allow the federal and provincial governments to provide quick, targeted assistance to help farmers protect and restore damaged crop land and resume business operations. This builds on existing support available through Business Risk Management programs for farmers.
“Our Prime Minister Stephen Harper took a tour over the damaged land with Premier, Brad Wall, and Minister Ritz and saw first-hand the devastation that has occurred due to the dramatic amounts of rainfall we have seen in the past month,” said Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification and MP for Blackstrap, Lynne Yelich. “We have seen it on the news, but to see the extent of the damage directly, I know that our Prime Minister was quite moved. The AgriRecovery response will be very welcome.”
A joint federal-provincial response will let the four governments respond quickly when disaster strikes a region and addresses the gap not covered by existing programs. The assistance is contingent on the federal and provincial governments finalizing program authorities. Provincial delivery agents in each province will inform farmers about the program parameters and also application details.
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