The federal Liberals are offering Canadian farmers $50 million towards the purchase of surplus food, aimed at filling the consumption hole left after forced restaurant closures.
The idea is to redistribute the food to food banks.
Dufferin Federation of Agriculture president and lamb farmer, Bill McCutcheon says restaurant closures are affecting his processor, White Valley Meat Packers, who package veal — a popular speciality meat with restaurants.
He says processors are able to save the supply chain by freezing products, however, frozen meat sales are immediately marked down.
Frozen meats aren’t profit generators, McCutcheon explains, adding processors must also use additional resources to freeze and store them.
Another $77 million is going to Canadian food processors to retrofit their factories and increase capacity to deal with a backlog of livestock in parts of the country.
McCutcheon says instead, funds should be going to directly subsidize farmers.
There’s been massive COVID-19 outbreaks at some large Canadian food processors who process a majority of domestic meats.
McCutcheon says some hog farmers have been forced to euthanize their livestock because they can’t afford to hold on to them as processors have shut down.
Canada is also adding $125 million to the AgriRecovery fund, a federal-provincial program aimed at helping farmers during disasters.
