AGRI Committee Report

LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS

Recommendation 1

Your Committee recommends that the criteria used to determine whether a natural disaster exists be reviewed and clarified, so that all events considered natural disasters are treated with equal fairness and consistency.

Recommendation 2

Your Committee recommends that the AIDA program inventory calculation formula be changed in order to take into consideration actual market values of inventories at the beginning and end of the year. Furthermore, the Committee recommends that a mechanism be developed whereby AIDA applications can be filed with respect to the production year.

Recommendation 3

Your Committee recommends that the AIDA program formula be changed so that the margin years used to calculate payments reflect expanding farm sizes and diversified farm operations.

Recommendation 4

Your Committee recommends that the present link between the AIDA program and NISA be changed so that farmers may obtain maximum benefits from the specific features of both these farm income safety net programs.

Recommendation 5

Your Committee asks that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the National Safety Nets Advisory Committee immediately consider the feasibility of setting up an acreage payment program, and report back to the Committee on this point as soon as possible.

Recommendation 6

Your Committee recommends that the federal-provincial governments contribution to the Net Income Stabilization Account be doubled, from 3% to 6%, and that the federal and provincial ministers of Agriculture consider the possibility of making the rules governing the use of NISA more flexible, thus adjusting NISA to better suit changing conditions in markets for agricultural commodities.

Recommendation 7

Your Committee recommends that the federal government develop a permanent farm income disaster assistance program with a minimum annual budget of $500 million and, in order to ensure the program's long-term sustainability, that this annual budget be separate from the farm income safety net budget, so that unused funds can accumulate and form a contingency fund.

Recommendation 8

Your Committee recommends that the government continue to develop a rural development policy clarifying the role and direction of the agricultural industry in Canada; one objective of this policy must be to maintain a favourable social and economic climate that will allow family farms to continue to form the basis of farm production.