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Vol. 9, No. 17, Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Solution needed to help get grain shipments back on the rails, says local MP Michelle Pinon Editor Leon Benoit doesn’t want to point fingers, but he does want answers regarding the current backlog of grain shipments that are affecting farmers across the country. “I ship a lot of grain myself,” said Benoit, long-time MP for Vegreville-Wainwright constituency from his office in Ottawa early Thursday morning. “I know there’s a lot of grain sitting on the ground and in bags,” stated Benoit, who was pushing the railways back in August to be prepared for a big increase in volume because of the amount of record crops in the west. At that time he anticipated volumes to increase by 30 per cent over the previous year. “It was just a mammoth crop,” point out Benoit, and while grain shipments weren’t mov-
MP Leon Benoit
ing too bad in November and December, things have slowed down considerably in January. “I haven’t had a good explanation as to what happened in January, but I will be talking to the railways to push them and find out why,” added Benoit. While prices are depressed, Benoit said farmers could still get a better price if they were able to sell now instead of later, but that also depends on whether they previously signed contracts with grain companies or not. If not, they could be waiting until July or August to unload last year’s crops. “I’ve been told by people in the market they are not booking shipments.” That is another reason, said Benoit, the Minister of Agriculture, Gerry Ritz has set up a special committee to address the current situation. Back on Jan. 21 Ritz met with representatives from grain associations and railway officials in Winnipeg. As a result, a new project was announced that will measure performance for grain traffic to gauge rail service supply chain efficiency and reliability. One thing that has surprised Benoit is that only 40 per cent of farmers have taken advantage of the federal government’s
Advance Payments Program (APP), a financial loan guarantee program that gives producers easier access to credit through repayable cash advances. Under the APP, the federal government guarantees repayment of cash advances issued to farmers by producer organizations. These guarantees help producer organizations borrow money from financial institutions to issue producers a cash advance on 50 per cent of the anticipated value of their farm product that is being produced or is in storage. Eligible producers can receive an APP advance of up to $400,000 at a preferential interest rate, with the government paying the interest on the first $100,000. Producers repay their advance, as their product is sold. Benoit also wanted to remind farmers that they have the option of the advance payments and the federal government has and could possibly postpone repayment until such time as the grain starts to move. Even though Benoit doesn’t know what the best answer is to the problem, he understands better than anyone how critical it is to get the grain moving to port as soon as humanly possible.
MICHELLE PINON PHOTOS
Leon Benoit, MP for the Vegreville-Wainwright constituency has been working behind the scenes and in the House of Commons to do what he can to get grain shipments moving for producers in our region and throughout Canada. He stood up in the House of Commons to make a statement this past week, in the hopes of getting grain out of farmers bins and into rail cars. Benoit says he understands farmers plight firsthand as a producer, and even has grain in bags on his Mannville area farm.