Eligible producers will be contacted soon about the amounts of their advances and how to receive those payments, said the federal agriculture department.

The 2008 program announcement comes about two months after Saskatchewan pig farmers went public with notices received from the agriculture income stabilization (CAIS) office, saying the farmers' TAPs from the 2007 AgriStability program were going to be much less than or none of what the office had originally informed them they would receive.

Producer group Sask Pork has said that within days of receiving a first communication in early January on their 2007 TAPs, nearly all producers were subsequently informed that they would be receiving a substantially reduced payment. In many cases some would get nothing at all; others may find that previously calculated payments were incorrect, said the group.