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Civic councillor and farmer Ian Paton says he’s not encouraged aid money for farmers will come sooner rather than later based on a conversation with the minister of agriculture.
PHOTO BY
CHUNG CHOW
Delta farmers still face hurdles Local growers, hit by heavy rainfall, waiting to get emergency provincial aid and AgriRecovery Program help BY
SANDOR GYARMATI
sgyarmati@delta-optimist.com
01011304
Delta farmers have a few hurdles to clear before they’ll see a dime of emergency provincial aid. Farmers throughout the Fraser Valley experienced massive crop losses in the fall due to torrential rainfall that began in early September. Saying until September it had been a fairly good growing year, longtime farmer Peter Guichon previously said it was likely the worst period of rain experienced locally in 80 years, resulting in potato and other crops rotting in the ground and bogging down equipment. In addition to crop insurance
farmers take out, local growers were also hoping to use the provincial AgriStability Program. Farmers also wanted the province to initiate a joint federal/provincial AgriRecovery Program as well. However, until now all farmers had to rely on to pay bills and somehow get by is whatever crop insurance they had, said civic councillor and Ladner farmer Ian Paton, also a director of the Delta Farmers’ Institute. “I’ve been through this myself and suppliers are usually pretty good about saying, ‘I know things have been tough, I know you owe us a bunch of money, but you have to get things wrapped up by Christmas,’” he said.
“It may not be uncommon to have a fertilizer bill from a fertilizer company for $75,000 or $100,000 that has to be cleaned up by Christmas. You may owe $50,000 to your fuel company for diesel, all these different things.” Paton said there will likely be unpaid bills heading into 2011 because by the time the government gets all the figures it requested from local growers, AgriStability payments likely won’t take place until well into the new year. “It’s going to be a tough go. Then guys have to have money to buy seed for the upcoming year,” he said. The federal/provincial recovery program will likely be even
further down the road, explained Paton, because farmers will be required to show all the payments they received from crop insurance, the provincial recovery program as well as prove their losses. Paton and members of the DFI recently met with Ben Stewart, appointed minister of agriculture in October, who visited in Delta. Paton said based on that conversation he wasn’t encouraged aid money for farmers will come sooner rather than later. The massive crop losses in Delta have also impacted programs undertaken by the Delta Farmland and Wildlife Trust. According to a recent newsletter by the trust, the rains saturated the soil and overwhelmed drain-
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age systems, turning the farm fields of Delta into “a slurry of silt, clay and water.” By the end of October, over 1,800 acres of potatoes were left in the field, along with bean, silage corn, grain and cole crops, notes the trust. This year, approximately 2,000 acres of cover crops were planted in the trust’s winter cover crop program for wintering birds, compared to an average of 3,000 acres. The trust notes the lower acreage was a result of the heavy rainfall that saturated soils and interfered with crop harvests. Meanwhile, during the minister’s visit here farmers discussed the millions of dollars the provSee FARMERS page 3