AGRISTABILITY

[tmyrfield]

What is the consensus out there about agristability? Due to a non Dec.31st year end with my corp i have different deadline for my enrollment fee/notice of dec.18th. I have worked through the growing forward scenarios and really am having a hard time justifying this program. As i see it a drop of 50% from reference margin would only get you a 15% payout. for example a CRM of 100,000 and you have a margin drop of 50,000 then you get 70% of 20,000 or just 14000. Since I have never had a payout and yet have had 2 total crop failures. 100% hail storm. That year I was told I shouldn't have had hail insurance then |I would have gotten a payout. Maybe. And again in 2010 from flooding which is still under appeal. I am thinking this has become a program benefiting public sector employees more than farmers for whom it was supposed to benefit. I know that some have benefited and/or are able to use the CRM to back stop their operation but by and large very few like it. Comments pro and con are appreciated.

[mustardman]

You'd have Better luck collecting on Hail Insurance that ONLY INSURES you from storms coming from the EAST.

Another decent program that our Home grown Agravation minister f$%%ked up

[SASKFARMER3]

Useless and if you ever get a check you get audited a year later by them and if you owe you pay and if they made a mistake you get nothing.

[Hopalong]

Try working out a margin loss of one hundred per cent which can and has happened on many farms.
Believe payment should be 70 per cent of 70 per cent or $49,000 on $100,000 allowable margin.
Not saying it is for everyone but for those with a decent production margin, it is a no brainer.

[Braveheart]

I think the design and delivery of AgriStability has more to do with trade negotiations than anything else. AAFC is hamstrung on how the ag industry can be supported. Risk management can't stray into subsidization.

I've been at the safety net discussion table. Finance Ministry is in charge, not Ag.

Thank the Canadian Federation of Agriculture for sitting back and saying thanks for nothing. (They're the big players there). Their reps would rather spend the time playing Backgammon with the Ag civil servants after the meeting than ruffle feathers.

[Nudge]

tmyrfield, First of all if you have had two crop failures and have not collected one of three things is true. 1. you don't have any margin. 2. either you, your accountant, or the civil servant made mistakes. or 3. it wasn't a crop failure.
This program benefits high input, high margin farms more. Hopalong is right in that the most you can ever collect is 49% of your margin. It is very cheap catastrophic ins. (i.e. unable to seed a crop). And some like yourself are able to know if they are in a claim position before you have to send in the fee. However if you choose not to enrol, you should still send in the info so they can keep reference margins up to date.

[canolacrazy]

i think braveheart is right about subsidies. there's been stories about people bidding up land rent because of high reference margins. 'course, that was before the changes.

[Hopalong]

Those who look with envy at US program subsidy levels can take a close look at provisions and details of their 2014 farm bill coming into effect for 2015.
Seems very complicated and a triumph for bureaucracy.
Does move more of the risk management funding and emphasis to crop insurance where subsidy levels appear to range around the 65 per cent level.
Makes our own Growing Forward II and our federal and provincial agriculture people more appealing.