‘Disappointing’: Agriculture groups speak out on government aid package

CALGARY (660 NEWS) – On Tuesday, the federal government announced a $252 million aid package to help the agri-food industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, some agriculture groups feel that support is not enough to handle the burden farmers and ranchers are facing.

Jeff Nielsen is with the Grain Council of Canada and said they’ve been asking for a change to a program to help manage business risk that would have helped them deal with the fall-out from COVID-19.

He said producers are up against a wall because most are still grappling with issues from a horrible harvest last year.

“We’ve seen issues from last fall, we nicknamed it the harvest from hell. There’s a lot of combining going on this spring. There could have been measures in place now that could have helped a lot of producers this spring.”

RELATED: Year in review: Farmers endure ‘Harvest from Hell’

That sentiment is shared by the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association which said the aid package falls short of what is needed.

“Our ask for the beef industry worked out to about $350 million and this works out to about $50 million,” said Chairman Bob Lowe.

Lowe said without further help right now, he believes a lot of producers may leave the industry.

“During BSE (Mad Cow Disease) we lost 27,000 producers. Most of them were younger producers which are the future of the industry. This has the potential to do the exact same thing and that’s what we don’t want.”

It’s estimated that the Canadian beef industry could lose half a billion dollars by June on market-ready cattle.

WATCH: Federal government announced aid package for agri-food sector 

The Alberta Beef Producers are also calling for more funding, saying “while we recognize the support from federal government and value the acknowledgement of the severe impacts COVID-19 continues to have on our industry, we are extremely disappointed that this funding does not come close to meeting the needs of beef and cattle producers.”

“The Prime Minister made a commitment to consider more funding if it is needed and our clear message is that more support is needed immediately.”

Last week the Canadian Federation of Agriculture called for $2.6 billion in federal support to help maintain food security during the COVID-19 crisis.

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