ALP is advocating on behalf of our producers to Minister RJ Sigurdson, Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation, Jason Hale, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation and Darryl Kay, Chief Executive Officer, Agriculture Financial Services Corporation to make some necessary changes to the 2023 Canada-Alberta Drought Livestock Assistance response program.
ALP has communicated our concerns about introducing the target areas approach for compensation and asked that the AgriRecovery response program removes this stipulation and includes all regions of Alberta, as the drought conditions are affecting feed prices across the province, regardless of the producer’s geographical location.
We also communicated that producers in our province have had a very challenging last few years, ever since we entered the Covid-19 pandemic recovery period. We know our producers have been facing prolonged and historically low market prices, coupled with a dramatic increase to the cost of production. When it comes to having a level playing field with imported lamb coming into our province, our local producers are unable to compete with Australian and New Zealand lamb.
We continue to see producers having to make the tough decision to exit the industry as it is no longer financially feasible to remain in the industry. For our producers to have a viable future and livelihood in the industry, more financial supports are needed and that is what ALP is advocating for with our Provincial government.
ALP raised these concerns with the hope that it will lead to a healthy and constructive process to ensure all industry players have the confidence needed to keep our industry healthy.
Should you have any questions, pelase reach out to the ALP office: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 403-948-8533