The Price Pooling Program is a federal program that provides a price guarantee to marketing agencies. The guarantee protects the marketing agencies and its producers against unanticipated declines in the market price of their products. This program is designed to assist and encourage cooperative marketing of eligible agricultural products, including processed products. Program participants use the price guarantee as security to attach credit from lending institutions. This credit allows the marketing agency to improve cash flow of producers through an initial payment for products delivered and provides equal returns to producers for products of like grades, varieties and types.

The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada enters into an agreement with a marketing agency (associations of producers, processor or selling agent) for the marketing of agricultural products under a cooperative plan. The agreement provides a price guarantee for products delivered, enables the marketing agency to make an initial payment to the producers for products delivered and covers eligible storing, processing, carrying and selling costs of the marketing agency, to a fixed maximum. The price guarantee is set at a percentage of the expected average wholesale price of the product.

The agreement covers the production of an agricultural product for a crop year. Once all the agricultural product is sold, the actual average wholesale price received by the marketing agency is determined. If the calculated value is less than the guarantee value (i.e. the initial payment plus the eligible costs), the program allows for a payment for the shortfall by the federal government.

If the calculated value is greater, by contrast, the surplus is retained by the pool for future use or is distributed by the marketing agency to the producers according to the grade, variety and type of the product that they delivered to the pool.

As the program is delivered through the marketing agencies on behalf of their members, a producer can only receive an initial payment through a marketing agency and not directly from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.