Strengthening Agriculture

Our government has stood up for farmers and worked to bring better services closer to home for rural residents.

Providing Supports

• Throughout the BSE crisis our government stood beside our cattle producers and offered supports totaling over $158 million.



• This summer we launched a Forage Assistance Program to assist livestock producers who are short of hay, grain and straw due to drought/excess moisture conditions, especially in the Interlake where a 1-in-150-year rainfall contributed to significant overland flooding.



• We also announced an additional $53 million in support over and above the $51.4 million in general agricultural support budgeted for 2007/08. This additional funding provided: $60 million in loan support for hog producers; $25 million for industrial waste-water treatment plants in Neepawa and Brandon; $14.7 million in supports for the cattle industry; deferred principal payments on BSE recovery loans for three years; and, provided cattle producers in the Riding Mountain Eradication Area with $6 a head for TB testing.



• The province has contributed nearly $450 million for farm income stabilization programs from 2003 to 2007.



• We were the first province to introduce a permanent Excess Moisture Insurance program.



• Budget 2008 added an additional $8.8 million to the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation to reflect rising crop values, bringing production insurance coverage to $1.5 billion.



• We were the first province to create an Office of the Chief Veterinarian whose vision can be summed up as “protecting animals, food, and people”.

Economic Development

• While other provinces have cut extension services, we have maintained and expanded Manitoba’s agricultural extension services with the creation of 10 Growing Opportunities (GO) Teams throughout Manitoba.



• To support food processing production in Manitoba we upgraded the Food Development Centre in Portage la Prairie and established a Food Commercialization Knowledge Centre. Our $25 million investment in the Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals at the University of Manitoba will provide opportunities for economic growth through value-added processing and new agricultural products.



• Manitoba is the first province to pilot an Alternative Land Use Services (ALUS) program.



• Manitoba Hydro recently introduced the Bioenergy Optimization Program to assist Manitoba farmers in using biomass sources, waste wood, crop residues and livestock manure to produce energy. Hydro has also developed a Power Smart for farmers program to support greater energy efficiency in producer operations.



• We are promoting the development of wind farms which bring considerable economic returns to farmers and rural communities in the form of jobs, landholder payments and taxes.



• We increased the Farmland School Tax Rebate to 70% in 2008, up from 65% in 2007 and 33% in 2004, the year it began. This year the rebate will return more than $30.7 million to Manitoba farmers.



• Budget 2008 invests in biofuels such as ethanol, biodiesel and biomass to provide new revenue streams for Manitoba producers.



• Rural and Northern Manitobans have been saving $16 million each year as a result of our move to standardize hydro rates across the province.



• In 2001 we introduced a subsidy for drinking water testing which the previous government had privatized. With Budget 2007 we will have invested over $130 million to upgrade water systems in more than 100 communities across rural Manitoba.



• To encourage more students to pursue careers in agriculture, we created a $300,000 Ag Centennial Scholarship at the U of M’s Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences. $150,000 was provided by the province and the remaining $150,000 was matched by industry.



• Husky’s $145 million ethanol plant expansion at Minnedosa, supported by Manitoba’s ethanol mandate, will provide a new green energy market for Manitoba farmers.



• We have made an historic $400 million a year investment in our provincial highways without raising the gas tax. This investment more than doubled the highway construction budget - an increase of 125%.



• The Building Manitoba Fund will flow $7.4 million to municipalities over the next two years - $6.3 million for recreation and library facilities and $1.1 million for information technology upgrades.

Canadian Wheat Board

• We are standing up for Manitoba farmers. We support the single desk marketing of wheat and barley. Without the CWB, multinational grain companies would dominate the western wheat and barley industry in an increasingly concentrated global market.



• We believe that farmers, not politicians, should decide on the future of the CWB. When the federal government would not give farmers a fair vote on the CWB, we did. Manitoba farmers voted in favour of retaining the single desk (61.8% for barley and 69.5% for wheat).

Community Supports

• In September 2008 the province expanded its rural health-care strategy by increasing incentives for students in Manitoba’s growing medical-school classes to build their careers in a rural community.



• We’ve committed to doubling recreation funding to over $60 million over four years. Key announcements this summer include the Portage la Prairie Multiplex, the Brandon YMCA and the Arborg Outdoor Aquatic Centre.

Figures are current as of October, 2008

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