On Feb. 9, the P.E.I. Minister of Agriculture and Land Bloyce Thompson announced the government had created a million-dollar fund to assist Island farmers in “sectors that incurred extraordinary costs due to post-tropical storm Dorian."
Minister Thompson said, “The program will assist producers not covered by our business risk management programming.” (crop insurance). The minister’s news release states, “The Post-Tropical Storm Dorian Response Program will be available for farmers who can demonstrate extraordinary Dorian-linked expenses in three impacted sectors – corn, crambe and tree fruit.” The release says, “Agriculture and Land will immediately begin work with the P.E.I. Federation of Agriculture to develop a program and deliver this compensation.”
A CBC article by Kerry Campbell expanded on the story informing us, that an application by the Federation of Agriculture under the federal AgriRecovery program for $12 million had been turned down. The AgriRecovery program, established to compensate farmers for extraordinary costs incurred from natural disaster, is set up on the basis of a 60/40 split between the two levels of government. Had the program application for 12 million been successful, the Island’s share would have been $4.8 million, but under the announced program $1 million is being offered.
What is even more noteworthy, is that Dorian happened in the fall of 2019. It is now the winter of 2021, and the impacted farmers will have to demonstrate extraordinary Dorian-linked expenses, even though some have said it will take years to recover.
Mere days into the first shutdown from the COVID-19 pandemic, Robert Irving of Cavendish Farms put out a short statement saying that perhaps his contract farmers should seek out new markets. In a blink of the eye, the government in a release said 4.7 million of taxpayers’ dollars was being made available to Cavendish Farms to process the potatoes and put them in cold storage. Yet, those potatoes were in a safe climate controlled storage, not lying out in rain soaked fields. Winter was not barking at farmers' heels; it is doubtful anyone at that point really knew the market impact from COVID-19. There was instant action on the part of our government. Did those process farmers have to prove extraordinary expenses due to the pandemic? No, because it was to be a direct payment to Cavendish Farms.
Were markets really lost? Island taxpayers have a right to know since we are picking up the tab. It appears our provincial government has little interest in transparency or answering to Island taxpayers. It also appears there are very different rules for different sectors of Island agriculture. Now, why is that, Minister Thompson?
Rita Jackson,
North Milton
