Manitoba’s cattle producers will be eligible for direct payments from a $14.7 million fund to help support them through high feed costs, low cattle prices and the high Canadian dollar.
The province announced Friday it will put $7.35 million toward the payments, while the other half will come from the federal government’s $41.9 million Community Development Trust funding for Manitoba, announced Thursday.
Ottawa recently set up the Community Development Trust with $1 billion from the projected 2007-08 budget surplus, to help provinces help their communities and workers facing hardship caused by volatility in global financial and commodities markets.
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From the $14.7 million budgeted, Manitoba cattle producers will
get a direct payment of up to three per cent of historical net sales.
The payment, to be administered by the Manitoba
Agricultural Services Corporation (MASC), will be provided to all
ruminant producers and will be “in proportion to the size of
producers’ livestock operations,” with a maximum payment of
$90,000, the province said.
“This is an industry that only recently was able to begin to
recover from the impact of the BSE crisis and now cattle
producers are being hit again,” provincial Agriculture Minister Rosann Wowchuk said when announcing the funding Friday in Neepawa.
