About the evaluation
- The Office of Audit and Evaluation of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada undertook the evaluation of the AgriInsurance Program to assess its relevance, efficiency and effectiveness.
- The evaluation assessed the Program from 2017-18 to 2022-23 using a variety of methods including: a review of Program documents, files and literature; analysis of administrative and secondary data; interviews with internal and external stakeholders; and an external expert panel review.
AgriInsurance summary
- AgriInsurance aims to minimize the economic effects of production losses caused by uncontrollable natural hazards or diseases.
- Nearly $3.4 billion was expended federally, between 2017-18 and 2021-22.
- Provincial governments administer AgriInsurance and cost-share with AAFC on a 40:60 basis.
- Producers cover 40% of premiums that are used to pay indemnities.
What we found
Relevance
- AgriInsurance is relevant as there are no other comparable production insurance mechanisms in Canada that could offer the same coverage at an affordable price to producers.
Design and delivery
- Innovation and promising practices have addressed administrative issues and facilitated the Program's design and delivery in some provinces.
- AgriInsurance is well-integrated in the BRM suite of programs but a limited understanding of the suite and how programs interact may result in gaps in coverage.
Performance
- AgriInsurance was efficiently administrated in only a few provinces. Climate change poses a threat to the Program's cost as more frequent and severe regional weather events are expected to occur, at a time when provincial reserves are at a historic low.
- AgriInsurance responds quickly to producers experiencing a loss and contributes to producers' income stability.
- The absence of participant-level Program data and standardization in data collection across the various jurisdictions impedes the timely assessment of results.
- Producers in Canada have access to AgriInsurance; however, some Agricultural subsectors and groups remain underserved.
Recommendations
Recommendation 1: The Assistant Deputy Minister, Programs Branch should identify and address Program inefficiencies by facilitating collaboration between provinces to share promising design and delivery practices.
Recommendation 2: The Assistant Deputy Minister, Programs Branch in consultation with the Information Systems Branch, should work with the provinces to standardize Program performance and administrative data and develop mechanisms to share this data and improve its timeliness.
Recommendation 3: The Assistant Deputy Minister, Programs Branch should improve sector awareness and understanding of the BRM suite of programs.
Management response
Management agrees with the evaluation recommendations and has developed an action plan to address them by December 2026.