After a less than ideal growing season for farmers, the NDP opposition wants the UCP to commit to getting crop insurance payouts done by the end of this month.
Heather Sweet, the NDP’s Ag Critic, was on the Trending 55 Hot Seat and says they were pressing the government to have insurance programs ready to go even before the heat wave from this summer.
“What we are hearing now is that many people are still waiting to get their assessments done and then also to get their insurance payouts made out to them. We have farmers and ranchers right now who are in stressful situations because they’re looking at planning for next season and they haven’t received any of the financial supports that they were paying into for their insurance programs.”
Sweet says the NDP is also asking the government to put in a loan guarantee program to help drought affected producers.
“Basically those who are in need of some access to capital for next year but don’t have the business capital to be able to put towards a loan, but the government would be willing to look at setting up a one time drought response loan guarantee program. So basically the government would back the loans to support farmers and ranchers to get access to seed or feed for next season.
We talked to Sweet on the Trending 55 Hot Seat, you can listen to that full interview below.
– Kyle Moore, Trending 55 Newsroom
