HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1988-06-22, Page 15THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1988. PAGE 15.
'Banks have abandoned farmers'
Continued from page 14
They should have analyzed farm
ing better to realize they should be
loaning only to the productive
value-of the land.
Now, he said, most banks
seemed to have abandoned the
farmer. They will keep existing
clients but they make sure they
take everything but the kitchen
sink for security and then they pull
the plug at the first sign of trouble.
The government’s new farm
improvement loan program was
supposed to help farmers with
refinancing but the loans just
areti.’tbeing made, Mr. Phillips
said. Banks apparently have
agreed that they will not loan
money to help a farmer refinance if
another bank is going to take a loss,
even if the government guaranteed
farm improvement loan will make
money for the lender.
Sometimes banks have to be
saved from themselves, he said,
suggesting that perhaps the Farm
Debt Review Boards should be
empowered to impose a farm
improvement loan on abank if it
will make a farming operation
viable again.
Banks have pulled back from
agriculture too much, he said. One
bank even fired all its agrologists
meaning banks, which never truly
understood the farming business
in the first place, now know even
less.
Doug Garniss of Morris town
ship, executive member of the
Ontario Federation of Agriculture
-skid that farmers must fight to keep
the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture
and Food (OMAF) from reducing
the Ontario Family Farm Interest
Reduction plan (OFFIR) from 100
per cent to 40 per cent this year.
The farm debt is still at near 1984
levels, he said in his presentation
in the discussion, while farm prices
have actually declined since 1984.
The only reason for the govern
ment to cut back on OFFIR is to
shift money out of the OMAF
budget into something else, he
said, becauseOFFIR was under
budget last year even at the lOOper
cent coverage.
Farm financial advisor Stephen
Thompson, speaking from the
audience, said that if the coverage
is dropped to 40 per cent he
couldn’t see the benefit to many of
his clients in applying at all. That
would mean even more of a surplus
for OFFIR.
The third panel member Ken
Kelly, OFA executive member
from Bruce County, said that
promptactionbyOFAmay have
helped keep credit unions as a
source of farm financing. Provin
cial regulators had been reinter
preting rules and telling credit
unions they had to cut their loans to
farmers, he said. Under legislation
credit unions can lend only seven
per cent of their loans to business
(15 with special permission) but
farm loans had been categorized as
personal loans and weren’t includ
ed in the business portfolio.
Auditors, seeing the large number
of farm loans panicked, he said,
and began telling credit unions
they must include farm loans as
business loans.
Mr. Kelly said he understands
draft legislation has resulted from
OFA's pressure allowing credit
unions to negotiate the limit of the
agricultural lending they under
Glen Johnston of RR 2, Bluevale accepts the keys to his new tractor
from Brian McGavin of McGavin Farm Supply Ltd. in Walton. The
125-horsepower TW-25 tractor is the second-largest tractor Ford
makes, and was the first agricultural tractor sold from the new north
Huron dealership. The symbolic key ceremony took place at the
McGavin-VincentHay Day demonstration in McKillop Twp. on
Friday.
WE’RE RELOCA TING
For this you see think of me,
Though many a mile we distant be.
Brown’s Tire Service will shut down for a few weeks as we will
re-open in a new area not too far away. I will still work in this area
and specialize in Mobile Tire Repair Service.
Yours to appreciate,
Walter J. Brown,
Brown’s Tire Service,
R.R. #2, Blyth, Ontario.
take depending on the expertise
they have shown in lending to
farmers, the solvency of the credit
union and the proportion of
business done with farmers.
Mr. Kelly also called for FCC to
become a dominant supplier of
long-term farm credit saying that
three types of farmers, retiring
farmers, beginning farmers and
farmers needing to restructure
their debt, will be hurt if the
government reduces the role of
FCC.
to handle your crop
When it’s time to market your crop, you’ll find all
the services, facilities and expertise you need are
close-by at Cook’s. We go out of our way to give you
the best possible prices, terms and options to make
all your hard wort pay off.
When it's time to deliver your crop make Cook’s
your destination.
Where you con trade
with confidence"
Division of Gerbro (1967) Inc.________________
HCBE boosts mill rate to
accommodate 'slippage'
The Huron County Board of
Education has voted to increase the
mill rate it will requisition from
county municipalities by a further
one per cent of its budgeted
increase for 1988. The one percent
amount, approximately $150,000,
is in addition to the 10.9 per cent
increase in local allocations esti
mated following the passage of the
HCBE budget last April.
The extra funds will be used to
accommodate what director of
education Bob Allen called “slipp
age”, or adjustments to property
tax assessments anticipated as the
result of successful appeals under
the new system of market value
property assessment recently
adopted by the county.
The motion was passed by a
recorded vote of 11-1, with two
trustees abstaining. It followed the
defeat of an earlier motion,
proposed by trustee Joan Van den
Broeck (Colborne and Goderich
Twps.), by a recorded vote of 8-5,
with one abstention, to increase
the 1988 mill rate by two per cent,
as suggested by G.E. Morgan,
acting regional assessment com
missioner, in a letter to the school
board last April. The two percent
additional increase would have
raised approximately $300,000 to
cover assessment errors.
In protesting both motions,
trustee John Elliott (Blyth, Morris
and East Wawanosh) said: “How
can (the assessment department)
make that many mistakes? It looks
(to me) like an easy way to raise
taxes - and the request for an
increase isn’t even coming from
(the HCBE).”
However, former HCBE chair
man Art Clark (Wingham, Howick
and Turnberry), in defense of the
first motion, pointed out that
“slippage” is inevitable after any
reassessment, as taxes are adjust
ed during the appeal process, and
that any adjustments are always in
favour of the taxpayers.
Hensail Centralia
262-2410 228-6661
“I doubt if there is any idiot out
there who is going to appeal that
his taxes are too low,” he
explained.
Mr. Clark added that the
increase will not actually “extract
any more money from the tax
payer, ” but is merely adjusting the
mill rate at the municipal level.
‘‘Some taxpayers may wind up
paying more (in overall municipal
taxes), but others will pay less, ” he
said.
Huron County council, the only
outside agency besides the school
board that affects local taxes, has
already approved the two per cent
mill rate increase suggested by the
assessment commission. And Mr.
Allen warned trustees that if they
didn’t “build in sufficient protec
tion” in their request for an
increase, they could find them
selves in a very vulnerable position
if a large number of assessment
appeals at the municipal level were
successful.
And although the HCBE has
over requisitioned funds in its
budget to create a reserve for the
past five years, Mr. Allen remind
ed trustees that they had left
themselves more “vulnerable to
emergencies” this year by elimin
ating the reserve in passing the
1988 budget, in an attempt to hold
the line on local increases.
“The Haldimand County Board
of Education did not build in any
reserves (when the county switch
ed to market value assessment two
years ago) and they took quite a
shellacking (following assessment
appeals), ’ ’ he said, adding that the
Norfolk County board had accept
ed a one per cent increase two
years ago, and were quite satisfied
with their position today.
Any excess left as the result of
the mill rate increase will be dealt
with as an over-requisition in
municipal budgets this year, and
will be adjusted in 1989 municipal
budgets.
Kirkron
229-8986
Walton
527-1540
887-9261