The Advance Payments Program is administered on behalf of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada by various producer organizations and provides short term cash advances to crop and livestock producers based on the value of their agricultural products.

Under the program producers are eligible to borrow a maximum of 400 thousand dollars for one year with the first 100 thousand dollars being interest free.

Ron Marchenski, with the Manitoba Pork Credit Corporation the agency administering the hog loans in the four western provinces, says as producers become familiar with the program, they are becoming more comfortable with it.

Ron Marchenski-Manitoba Pork Credit Corporation

When the program was initiated producers were very leery on taking an advance.

As they moved forward and times were getting really tough they did approach our program and they began to take the interest free.

That really helped some of the producers so, when they came back for the second time, they were more comfortable and they started to take some of the interest bearing part of the program.

I think it's going to be a successful program.

We're hoping for higher prices.

I still have some people that walk in the door and they're still uncertain that, should we take this amount or should we take less.

Every producer is different in their thinking of the future.

With the prices improving, we may see a higher uptake for the loans.

Marchenski says 270 clients in the four western province's have borrowed approximately 57 million dollars under the program for 2008-2009.