WILDFIRES Agricultural group urges gov’t funding
Association asks for funds to help with feed costs, veterinary services, cleanup
As producers struggle to recover after a wildfire devastated 34,000 hectares of land and killed more than 700 cattle last month, the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) is asking for British Columbia-level help from the federal and provincial government.
“We’ve been talking to producers and RMs in the area,” APAS president Todd Lewis said in a news release. “The situation is serious enough to warrant the same level of response as in B.C. earlier this year.”
In July, a state of emergency was declared in B.C. due to hundreds of wildfires raging in the province’s interior. APAS says the same level of assistance provided by the 2017 Canada-British Columbia Wildfires Initiative should be given to Saskatchewan producers.
In a letter to the federal and provincial agriculture ministers, APAS has requested assistance with extraordinary feed costs, including transportation, re-establishment of safe winter feeding facilities and general cleanup, veterinary services, soil and feed testing, livestock mortality and replacement of breeding stock, extraordinary costs needed to return farmland to production, including critical infrastructure not covered by insurance, costs to repair private fences and re-seeding and establishment of tame forages and other perennials.
APAS says all of the above was provided to B.C. producers — funded by both the federal and provincial governments.
APAS isn’t the only organization rallying for Saskatchewan producers. Two weeks after the fire, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) announced its intention to lobby the government to expand the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP) to include uninsurable fire loss.
Delegates at the SARM midterm convention last week in Regina voted overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution to expand the disaster assistance program, along with several other resolutions to help those affected by the fire.
SARM also passed resolutions to lobby the government to offer fire insurance coverage on grassland, to initiate the AgriRecovery Program for producers affected by the wildfires and for taxation to be reassessed on pastures rendered unusable by the wildfires for one to three years.
“I think we’re pleased that the resolutions are passed,” said SARM president Ray Orb. “It gives us a little bit more of a direction on how we need to be able to handle some of these issues.”
At the convention, Orb said SARM met with officials from the provincial Ministry of Agriculture, as well as Dwayne McKay, commissioner of emergency measures and fire safety for the province, and people from PDAP. “The resolutions that were passed — (we) will be going back to those people again and trying to meet with them … and set up a strategy,” said Orb.
Resolutions that were opposed included municipalities waiving taxes due to hardship to those affected by wildfires and lobbying the provincial government to delay the latest sales of Crown land so it may be used by those affected by the wildfires.
Orb said now that some of the resolutions have been agreed on by SARM members, there are a few different paths to take, including writing letters to the government or meeting with ministers and other government officials in person.
The SARM board of directors will be discussing the strategies at their next board meeting, scheduled to be held in Regina in December.