Agriculture minister David Marit has outlined a 300 million dollar federal-provincial program to help drought-stricken livestock producers.

Marit says the province is providing 119 million and he is seeking an additional 178 million dollars from Ottawa under the 60-40 federal-provincial AgriRecovery program.

Marit says the funding will provide an immediate 100 dollar a head payment per breeding female to help maintain breeding stock.

Another 100 dollar per head payment should be available when the federal-provincial funding is finalized and the breeding herd retained.

Marit says the funds will help with extraordinary costs caused by drought, such as obtaining feed and water.

Earlier, the province announced temporary increases in the maximum rebates for farm and ranch water development and made efforts to divert low yielding crops to livestock feed use.
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