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SCA joins call for national tax deferral program

Aug 23, 2018 | 12:29 PM

Calls for a national tax federal program to save Saskatchewan cattle producers, are getting louder.

The Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association (SCA) is now joining other groups like the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS), who have asked Ottawa to provide the program to producers who are facing a feed shortage this year. SCA Board Chair Rick Toney said his group is asking for an ongoing program every year.

“We have to have a program that is there every year and producers can put it in their tool box and the producer is the one who initiates it,” Toney said.

At the national beef industry conference last month in London, Ontario, all the provincial and territorial representatives voted in support of the tax deferral program. The final decision now rests in the hands of the federal finance minister. Toney said producers need an answer sooner than later.

“Guys have to make decisions now with what they are doing and how they are doing to do it, the crisis is on us now,” he said.

When asked to comment on how serious the problem is, Toney said it really varies from region to region.

“Like if you go to Shellbrook they’ve had lots of rain and everything is perfect there, but the majority of the province has been hit by the drought,” he said.

Toney said there are producers whose pastures are gone and they have to move them. He said he also heard stories from some producers who are moving their yearlings up to a month earlier than they normally would.

“There’s guys selling 60 or 40 per cent of their herd because of the feed stacks, there’s guys talking about moving cattle to northern Saskatchewan where the feed is,” he said.

Toney said losing our cow herd in Saskatchewan will affect the economy of the whole country, and farmers need to have 100 per cent of the money they sell extra this year, back next year to buy their way back into the industry when the rains come.

 

nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell