Productions covered

General principles

Compensation: Program intervention when the selling price is lower than the stabilized income.
Compensation = Stabilized income - Average selling price

The payment of compensation is limited to the maximum total of all products covered for each fiscal period. Should that amount be exceeded, a reduction in compensation will be applied to all the products.

Insurance year: January 1 to December 31.

Stabilized income: production cost including 90% of the wages of 1.328 operator-owner. Earnings on equity and the stabilization insurance contribution for the product concerned are not included in the stabilized income.

Production cost: that of a specialized farm type whose parameters and expenses are indexed annually.

Selling price: average of the prices having prevailed in Québec during the insurance year for the lamb groups determined in the farm model.

Link between ASRA and AgriStability, AgriInvest and Agri-Québec:

• Compensation payments made in the framework of the Farm Income Stabilization Insurance (ASRA) Program take into account payments granted under the AgriStability, AgriInvest and Agri-Québec programs or under any government risk management program involving farm income;
• To continue to benefit from full coverage, ASRA participants must participate in AgriStability. ASRA compensation payments for those who do not participate in AgriStability are reduced by 40%.

Model farm

Farm with 533 female breeders and 106.2 hectares of crops.

Most of the feed is produced on the farm.

Annual production is 1.4 slaughter lambs and offspring for breeding marketed per ewe.

Sales consist of 24% milk-fed lambs, 20% light lambs and 56% heavy lambs.

The sale of wool is included in the model farm.

Eligibility

• Be domiciled in Québec.
• Be the owner of the animals that were raised in Québec.
• Marketed lambs must have been born in Québec and be the offspring of the female breeders owned by the participant at the time of lambing.
• Insure the entire insurable lambs.
• Insurable minimum of 1,015 eligible kilograms of lambs sold on a live basis annually.
  
• Participate in the Program for the product Lambs for a period of five years.
• No enrolment deadline.

Cross compliance measures

When the Ministère du Développement durable, de l'Environnement et des Parcs (MDDEP) transmits information to La Financière agricole establishing that the participant did not submit a valid phosphorus report as stipulated under the Agricultural Operations Regulation (AOR), the participant loses the right to any compensation for the current insurance year for all the insured products. Moreover, the participant will be required to pay, as an administrative fee, an amount equal to the contribution that would have been due on all the insured products.

The provisions related to the phosphorus report concern all the raising or spreading sites owned, leased or on which the operation custom produces. It targets all the operation’s productions, whether or not they are covered by a program at La Financière agricole.

For more information on the requirements related to the phosphorus report, participants should consult an agrologist or the regional office of the MDDEP.

Conditions for participation

Participants must identify their ovine breeding herd and lambs, using numbered tags intended for ovine production, recognized under the Regulation respecting the identification and traceability of certain animals. The participant must at no time take a tag off an animal already identified.

Participants must provide Agri-Traçabilité Québec (ATQ) with the following required traceability information at the moment of the birth, purchase, sale or mortality of animals: tag number, date of birth, sex, dates of entry, exit or death, for all animals and for the entire breeding herd.

Participants must market their heavy lambs under the supervision and direction of the Fédération des producteurs d’agneaux et moutons du Québec in accordance with the Règlement sur la vente en commun des agneaux lourds au Québec.

Participants who market breeding subjects must own 10% of the purebred female breeders registered with the Canadian Livestock Records Corporation. In addition, they must participate in the GenOvis home test program from the Centre d’expertise en production ovine du Québec (CEPOQ).

Evaluation procedures for insurable volume

Insurable Animals

To determine the insurable volume, La Financière agricole uses information held by ATQ and transmitted in the framework of the agreement reached for that purpose. That information includes, for each animal, the tag number, sex, date of birth, date of sale or mortality and weight at the time of sale.

The information is used to determine the insurable volume based on the number of lambs kept to establish the insurable  kilograms of lambs sold and the number of kilograms sold based on the actual weight or an estimated weight as per age using the following farm model groups:

• Milk-fed lambs
  13.6 to 27.2 kg of live weight or from 32 to 77 days old
• Light lambs
  27.21 to 36.28 kg of live weight or from 78 to 108 days old
• Heavy lambs
  36.29 to 59 kg of live weight or from 109 to 183 days old
• Breeding subjects:
  Breeding ewe lambs
  109 to 365 days old
  Rams
  109 to 548 days old

For breeding subjects, estimated weights are set at 40 kg (88 lb) or 48.2 kg (106 lb) based on the age stratum at the time of the sale. Insurable breeding subjects must be registered in the GenOvis genetic evaluation program. Along with being registered in the program, young rams must be of a registered breed.

For the purpose of determining the kilograms of lambs sold, a lamb may be considered sold only once and associated with a single participant. An animal cannot be considered both on the basis of kilograms of lambs sold and as a female breeder in inventory for a same participant.

Any kilograms of lambs associated with an animal born on the participant’s farm that was sold and bought back for breeding purposes by the participant, or purchased by an operation that has ties with that participant, are not eligible.

Only the information relating to the actual weight obtained from a source recognized by FADQ and agreed upon by the ATQ is considered to determine the insurable volume; otherwise, the weight is estimated.

The minimum weight required for a lamb to be eligible is 13.6 kg (30 lb). The maximum actual or estimated weight allowable for an insurable heavy lamb is limited to 59 kg (130 lb).

Animals slaughtered for contract in a transitory or local slaughterhouse and those marketed on a live basis directly to consumers are not insurable.

Starting in the 2012 insurance year, compensation will be broken down as follows: three quarters based on the eligible kilograms of lambs sold and one quarter based on the  lambs sold from which those kilograms of lambs sold stem.

La Financière agricole may, at any time, conduct a verification of the insurable volume. All the information gathered during such a verification will be used over any other information received.

Where La Financière agricole notices a difference between the insurable volume established from information from the ATQ and that established following a verification, the insurance covers the volume established as a result of the verification. The participant must pay, as an administrative fee, an amount equal to the share of the contribution due on the defaults observed.

In the event that the total insurable volumes of all participants for the insurance year in question exceed the collective insurable limit of 173,000 female breeders, the unit compensation and the year’s unit contribution will be established by applying a ratio resulting from the division of the collective insurable limit by the total number of insurable units of all participants for the year in question.

General

Financing of the Premium

One third of the premium comes from the participants and two thirds of the premium comes from La Financière agricole.

For participants whose insurable volume exceeds 2,090 lambs or 123,192 kg of lambs, 50% of the premium comes from participants and 50% from La Financière agricole for the volumes exceeding those thresholds. However, the share of the premium associated to the accumulated deficit, as of March 31, 2010, will continue to be financed based on a 1/3 - 2/3 ratio.

Any new participant affiliated with an operation that, as of November 11, 2009, had an insurable volume exceeding 1,493 female breeders or 123,192 kg of lambs is subject to the terms described in the above paragraph, but on all the insured units for the product Lambs.

Participant Contribution

The share of the premium coming from participants, or the required contribution, is deducted from the first compensation advance for the year. If need be, any remaining contribution is deducted from a later payment or recovered, at the latest, prior to the final payment for the insurance year in question. For a new participant, however, half the contribution is due upon enrolment.

Reduction in Contribution

Any farm operator qualifying a participant for an establishment grant under the Financial Support Program for Aspiring Farmers at La Financière agricole du Québec, makes it possible for the participant to benefit from a 25% reduction in his or her contributions, up to $50,000 annually for all insured products. The reduction applies for two consecutive years.

To be eligible for the reduction, the participant must remain eligible for the establishment grant for the full period of the insurance year in question.

From the time the establishment grant is confirmed, the participant has two years in which to apply for the reduction in contribution.

Administrative Fee

Annual administrative fees of $55, per category or insured product are charged. These fees may be indexed annually.

Compensation

The final compensation is paid at the latest by the May 31 following the end of the insurance year.

It is possible for La Financière agricole to pay compensation advances throughout the year.

Entitlement to compensation is conditional on the payment by the participant of any contribution due to their joint plan (Plan conjoint des producteurs d’ovins du Québec). La Financière agricole may deduct, from compensation payments it makes, the contributions due by participants to their joint plan.

Application for review

Any request for a review of a final decision rendered regarding a participant’s insurance file must be made in writing, explaining the motives behind the request, and sent to the Service Centre in charge of the participant’s file or delivered in person to a representative of La Financière agricole within ninety (90) days from the date of the decision in question. However, program conditions and parameters or program premises, the results of collective appraisals for crop insurance losses and exclusion from programs for motives provided for in the programs may not be subject to a request for a review.

This summary, in effect for the 2012 insurance year, in no way takes precedence over the provisions of the Program, of the regulation in effect or of any policy of La Financière agricole.