With drought conditions affecting farmers across the province, the NDP opposition is calling on the provincial government to take action.
Heather Sweet, the NDP Shadow Minister for Agriculture, says farmers need more support to help get feed and water for livestock.
“It’s time that we get the Agri-recovery programs in place and that we’re ensuring that agriculture producers have access to be able to drill for water if they need to. If they need to transport water that they have access to be able to do that and the financial supports to do it. That we’re monitoring the feed costs to ensure that agriculture producers aren’t paying higher levels of expenses and input costs.”
Sweet says these increased costs for consumers, could lead to higher prices for agriculture products in grocery stores.
She adds that the issues around affordability that are affecting many people are also impacting farmers as well.
“We’re putting a ton of pressures on our agriculture producers to be able to feed the world. The province has a responsibility to support producers, to work with the federal government in partnership because we can’t continue to see the inflationary costs at the grocery store. We have to address how expensive food is becoming and part of that is the input costs that producers are having to pay to produce our food.”
Earlier this month, the MD of Greenview declared a municipal agricultural disaster for its livestock industry due to extremely dry conditions.
You can listen to the full interview below.
– Kyle Moore, Trending 55 Newsroom
