Ontario agriculture insurance expansion law comes into force

A law that could potentially expand production insurance in Ontario offered by Agricorp is now in force, the province announced Saturday.

Bill 40, the Agriculture Insurance Act (Amending the Crop Insurance Act, 1996) came into force Sept. 1, the government noted in the Sept. 5 issue of the Ontario Gazette.

That law gives the Ontario minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs the power to designate, by regulation, additional products eligible for coverage under Agricorp, a crown corporation.

Currently, Guelph-based Agricorp covers production losses and yield reductions, caused by insured losses, for vegetables, fruit and honey, forage, tobacco and perennial plants.

It also covers margin declines caused by any combination of production losses, adverse market conditions or increased costs.

In 2013, Agricorp had “more than 14,000 customers, representing five million acres and $2.9 billion in liabilities insured under the production insurance program,” Eglinton-Lawrence Liberal MPP Mike Colle said earlier this year in the legislature.

Every province except Ontario “has the authority to offer production insurance plans for agricultural products beyond crops and perennial plants, so expanding production insurance in Ontario would bring us in line with the rest of the provinces,” said Arthur Potts, parliamentary assistant to agriculture, food and rural affairs minister Jeff Leal, during a debate on Bill 40 last December.