The Agriculture side of the Provincial Budget includes investments to keep producers competitive and profitable, especially in international markets.
$37 million has been set aside for agricultural research, including projects, and the crop and livestock research facilities.
The Ag Budget is $625 million, up $54.6 million from the previous year. The majority of it, $483.8 million, goes to the Sustainable Canadian Agriculture Partnership (Sustainable CAP) to continue funding the suite of business risk management programs.
The budget also includes $89.4 million to support initiatives such as disease surveillance, research to develop solutions to new emerging problems, farm safety, and an agriculture mentorship program.
The province also mentioned a pair of targets in its 2030 Growth Plan are on track to be met by the ag industry.
In 2023-24, Saskatchewan’s value-added agriculture revenue was $7.9 billion, $2.1 billion short of the goal of $10 billion.
In 2024, crop production was 35.5 million metric tonnes; the government’s target is 45 million tonnes.
As far as expenses go, $1.6 billion is budgeted for Agriculture, up $66 million from last year’s budget.
The Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation is largely responsible for that increase as the province expects more crop indemnities and higher AgriStability payouts.
Sask Crop Insurance has a net surplus of $56.3 million, compared to a deficit of $37.8 million last year. That bodes well for producers as the surplus will be saved in the event severe weather hits or other disruptions occur.
The only thing not included in the budget is tariff support as the government cited the tariff situation with the U.S. and China as too fluid to properly allocate funds to a contingency fund.