On Tuesday after the province's 2026 budget was released, CKDM NewsNow was able to attend a virtual press meeting with Finance Minister Adrien Sala to discuss rural focuses of the budget. After speaking with Minister Sala, the key takeaway was that the budget sounds good on paper, but doesn't do enough for farmers and producers across the province.
Of course, some of the agriculture-related announcements in the budget are great, like a freeze on crown land leases for a third year in a row. The budget says Manitoba's crown land lease rates are the lowest in western Canada, at $3.66 per animal unit month.
"For farmers and producers, we're saving you money yet again with a freeze on crown land leases for the third year in a row," said Minister Sala in his budget announcement.
The continued freeze on crown land leases is a good thing, according to Don Tarrant, General Manager of Reit-Syd Equipment. He said previous raises in crown land leases were a big blow to farmers, but the freeze helps them out a bit.
"Number of years ago [the government] attempted to raise it up significantly, and it was just bringing the producers to their knees with costs...another freeze is definitely necessary right now for producers. A lot of them, they're enjoying higher cattle prices, but they also have a lot of ground to make up," said Tarrant.
Crown land lease freezes aside, Minister Sala also announced the budget will include investments towards business risk management programming; a total of $143.7 million in the budget, which includes $45.6 million in income stabilization for AgriStability, $71.8 million in contributions to AgriInsurance premiums, and several increases to loan limits.
Increases to agriculture focused loan limits in this year's budget include an increase in the loan amount for the Young Farmer Rebate by $25,000, up to $400,000, with a maximum individual lifetime limit increase of $2,500, up to $42,500, a direct loan limit increase of $1.5 million, up to $6.25 million, and a $200,000 increase to the stock loan limit, up to $1.6 million.
During the post-announcment press meeting with Minister Sala, a big focus was how the provincial government plans to offset both unstable and uncertain crop prices, and rapidly increasing input costs for farming.
"I think one thing we've done as a government that's ensuring that we continue to provide help to producers is continuing the 50% school tax rebate for farm properties, and the farmland school tax rebate as well...we've identified a number of those important AgriStability and AgriInsurance investments we're making to support our farmers through this period of uncertainty," said Minister Sala.
It seem the general consensus on whether or not the government is doing enough when it comes to supporting farmers with this budget is a resounding no from the people it affects the most, and that when it comes to supporting agriculture, the budget's investments are a drop in the bucket.
"We're seeing the last number of months, or more than a year now with crop prices and input price increases, they've always come down to lending more money to farmers, I don't think that helps, but they really do need possibly some tax reductions on fuel or some kind of reductions on crop inputs...they need to find maybe perhaps another avenue to support farmers, whether it's a rebate, or again a tax rebate on fuel," said Don Tarrant of Reit-Syd Equipment.
"The property tax credit, although is very welcome, it certainly isn't going to offset the 30 or 40 percent increase to fuel costs, and certainly isn't going to offset the energy offset to fertilizer expenses, when you're looking at increased inputs from last fall to now just on nitrogen, phosphate, potash, it's tremendous," said Tere Stykalo of MNP Accounting.
Last year's budget had a total of $140.8 million in business risk management programming investments. This year's total is just $2.9 million more, an increase of barely over 2%.
