Read this on the Manitoba Cooperator site this morning. It's about time.
http://www.manitobacooperator.ca/issues/ISArticle.asp?aid=1000348355&PC=FBC&issue=11192009
The chair of the Commons standing committee on agriculture aims to turn off the tap of farm program funds for major corporations and small-scale hobby farmers alike.
Larry Miller, the Conservative MP for the Ontario riding of Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound since 2004, recently introduced Bill C-479, a private member's bill to amend the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food Act as it relates to “individuals or entities engaged in farming operations.”
“The purpose of this bill is to ensure that actual farmers are the primary target and beneficiaries of federally funded farm programs,” Miller said in a release after giving the bill first reading in the House of Commons on Nov. 5.
Miller’s bill pertains to any risk management, crop insurance or loan programs offered by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Consideration for such funds would not be granted to:
* any corporation with publicly traded stock;
* any company or subsidiary that’s 40 per cent or more controlled by a publicly traded corporation;
* any company, corporation or partnership with more than 250 shareholders, members or partners;
* any company, corporation or partnership with aggregate debts greater than $10 million arising out of a farming operation; or
* any farmer whose gross market value of production from a farm, including farm income stabilization payments and crop insurance payments, is less than $10,000 per year, or an average of that amount over a five-year period.
The bill makes an exception, however, for beginning farmers. It grants access to farm program funds for a farmer who makes at least $5,000 in gross market value per year including program payments, if he or she is under age 40 and is in the first three years of a farming operation.
Miller, in his release after introducing the bill, did not name any specific recipient that would be excluded.
It’s publicly known, however, that Maple Leaf Foods, for example, got $3 million in government-funded compensation in its second quarter ending June 30, relating to the company’s remaining hog operations.
And Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, which later morphed into Viterra, once infamously received $4.9 million from the AgriStability program’s predecessor, CAIS, for its own hog operations.
Miller, a former beef cattle producer from near Wiarton, Ont., said his bill would prevent farm program benefits from going to “large publicly traded and international companies, slaughter plants, or grain trading companies that may happen to also own some agricultural production units.”
Tax dollars, he said, “should not go to support big multinational companies, or some people’s hobby. Business risk management benefits and other farm programs should be reserved to help the commercial farmer… deal with the unique risks they face in their business.”
Private members’ bills only rarely make it through Parliament to become law. Miller, however, got royal assent in May last year for a bill he sponsored to protect heritage lighthouses.
http://www.manitobacooperator.ca/issues/ISArticle.asp?aid=1000348355&PC=FBC&issue=11192009
The chair of the Commons standing committee on agriculture aims to turn off the tap of farm program funds for major corporations and small-scale hobby farmers alike.
Larry Miller, the Conservative MP for the Ontario riding of Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound since 2004, recently introduced Bill C-479, a private member's bill to amend the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food Act as it relates to “individuals or entities engaged in farming operations.”
“The purpose of this bill is to ensure that actual farmers are the primary target and beneficiaries of federally funded farm programs,” Miller said in a release after giving the bill first reading in the House of Commons on Nov. 5.
Miller’s bill pertains to any risk management, crop insurance or loan programs offered by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Consideration for such funds would not be granted to:
* any corporation with publicly traded stock;
* any company or subsidiary that’s 40 per cent or more controlled by a publicly traded corporation;
* any company, corporation or partnership with more than 250 shareholders, members or partners;
* any company, corporation or partnership with aggregate debts greater than $10 million arising out of a farming operation; or
* any farmer whose gross market value of production from a farm, including farm income stabilization payments and crop insurance payments, is less than $10,000 per year, or an average of that amount over a five-year period.
The bill makes an exception, however, for beginning farmers. It grants access to farm program funds for a farmer who makes at least $5,000 in gross market value per year including program payments, if he or she is under age 40 and is in the first three years of a farming operation.
Miller, in his release after introducing the bill, did not name any specific recipient that would be excluded.
It’s publicly known, however, that Maple Leaf Foods, for example, got $3 million in government-funded compensation in its second quarter ending June 30, relating to the company’s remaining hog operations.
And Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, which later morphed into Viterra, once infamously received $4.9 million from the AgriStability program’s predecessor, CAIS, for its own hog operations.
Miller, a former beef cattle producer from near Wiarton, Ont., said his bill would prevent farm program benefits from going to “large publicly traded and international companies, slaughter plants, or grain trading companies that may happen to also own some agricultural production units.”
Tax dollars, he said, “should not go to support big multinational companies, or some people’s hobby. Business risk management benefits and other farm programs should be reserved to help the commercial farmer… deal with the unique risks they face in their business.”
Private members’ bills only rarely make it through Parliament to become law. Miller, however, got royal assent in May last year for a bill he sponsored to protect heritage lighthouses.
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