Governments provide financial relief for eligible farmers affected by drought conditions

Business, News February 14th, 2026

Both the provincial and federal governments have announced disaster relief for eligible Newfoundland and Labrador farmers and producers affected by widespread drought conditions in 2025. 

Both levels of government have agreed to implement the program under the 2025-26 Canada – Newfoundland and Labrador AgriRecovery Forage Assistance Initiative to help livestock producers purchase and transport animal feed.

AgriRecovery provides targeted financial help to Canadian agricultural producers pay for the extraordinary costs associated with recovering from disaster situations, like the drought conditions in 2025 that significantly impacted forage production.

AgriRecovery initiatives are cost-shared on a 60:40 basis between the federal government and participating provinces or territories, as outlined under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP). Newfoundland and Labrador’s dairy, beef cattle, and sheep/goat producers rely heavily on forage crops to feed livestock.

Program guide and applications for AgriRecovery are available here.

For program information, email AFAI@gov.nl.ca or call 709-637-2077. The deadline to apply is March 2, 2026.

AgriRecovery is available along with other Business Risk Management programs under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership to help agricultural producers recover from natural disasters. The federal and provincial governments recently opened the 2025 AgriStability program to accept late participants to help with problems they faced due to extreme dry conditions in 2025.

All farmers and producers are encouraged to apply for federal-provincial cost-shared business risk management programs for 2026, including:

• AgriStability: Protects producers against large declines in farming income for reasons such as production loss, increased costs and market conditions. The enrollment deadline for the upcoming 2026 program year is April 30, 2026.
• AgriInsurance: Provides producers with production insurance against uncontrollable natural perils. The enrollment deadline is April 30, 2026.
• AgriInvest: Helps producers manage small income declines and make investments to manage risk and improve market income. The deadline to submit AgriInvest program forms is September 30, 2026.

For more information on AgriInsurance, contact the Department of Forestry, Agriculture and Lands at 709-637-2378 or SCAP@gov.nl.ca.

More information on AgriStability or AgriInvest is available here or by calling 1-866-367-8506.

Additionally, to help producers manage the impacts of extreme weather, new regions have been added to the list of prescribed regions for the 2025 Livestock Tax Deferral. The Livestock Tax Deferral provision allows farmers that carry on a farming business in a prescribed area, who sell all or part of their breeding herd due to drought, excess moisture, or flooding, to defer a portion of sale proceeds to the following year.