by BETTER FARMING STAFF
A former board member of the Ontario Bean Producers’ Marketing Board says he resigned over the organization’s decision to step away from a merger with the Ontario Coloured Bean Growers’ Association.
Steve Twynstra was the only board member of nine to vote in favour of continuing the merger after it was learned that the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission would not allow the board to carry its regulating powers into the new organization.
“I thought about it long and hard,” Twynstra said Thursday of his decision to resign. “I think this is all about the future of the white bean industry in Ontario.”
In September, as the organizations finalized their merger proposal, they learned that the marketing commission would dramatically restrict the new organization’s ability to set dryer and grading charges. These are costs the dealers charge growers and, currently, only the white bean producers can regulate these. The commission will allow the new organization to set the charges only for its bean marketing pool — which the two current groups anticipate will attract only a tiny percentage of growers as most growers now grow under contracts.
Twynstra says that the white bean producers board called an emergency meeting in September to discuss the issue and voted to drop the merger. He says he handed in his resignation on Sept. 27, a week later.
The commission has decided to go ahead with a producer vote on the merger plan. Voting packages are arriving in producers’ mailboxes this week and growers will have until Oct. 26 to vote and mail their ballot. According to the commission's website, growers who produced a crop in 2010, 2011 or 2012 are eligible to vote.
Dave Woods, chairman of the coloured bean growers association, says the commission’s decision came as a surprise. Both he and Grant Jones, chairman of the white bean producers, say the change was in response to concerns raised by the industry’s dealers.
Woods says coloured bean producers had looked forward to being able to negotiate those costs and, in that respect, the negotiation with the commission did not go as efficiently as it could have. However, it’s important to move on, he adds, and create an environment in which all industry players can work together to seize new opportunities. “We need to have everybody getting along,” he says. “It’s a small industry and it’s getting smaller and if we start fighting and squabbling, it weakens it further. We cannot afford that.”
Woods notes that high corn and soybean prices in recent years have lured many growers away from growing edible beans. If it’s perceived that there’s internal strife within the industry, “people will just walk away from it.”
Both groups acknowledge that the merger would create savings by reducing overlaps. The total number of board positions of the two current organizations, for example, is 15 and the merger proposes a board of seven directors.
It will also alleviate financial challenges for coloured bean growers, whose association has operated under a small deficit for the past two years. The merger proposal calls for raising the checkoff fee for coloured beans to $6.60 per tonne from its current of $5, Woods explains. The association had planned to ask for the increase regardless of whether the merger takes place, he adds.
Jones says the white bean board is “in great shape” financially. The merger proposal calls for any extra money the board has to be applied to white bean research. It also proposes reducing the white bean checkoff to $6.60 per tonne from its current of $8.80. As well, growers will be allowed to market their beans outside of the province, something the white bean board currently prohibits.
Losing the ability to regulate grading and drying costs for contracts “was the only deterrent,” Jones says.
He notes that the current schedule for these costs was introduced about two or three years ago and uses a formula based on the dealers’ average power and labour costs. Little negotiation has taken place since the formula was introduced, he says.
Twynstra says the board requiring all growers to foot the costs of the pool, which marketed a tiny proportion of the beans produced, was a sticking point for him and he’s pleased to see that the new proposal calls for pool participants to share the costs of running the pool.
The Middlesex County farmer is a former bean dealer and also grows coloured beans. He says other board members accused him of being biased towards dealers’ perspectives. “I think that was disingenuous of them to suggest once a dealer, always a dealer,” he says.
In a letter to the editor, he states that the board’s current structure “has led to a rather acrimonious relationship between the board and its dealer network . . . Sometimes losing sight of its end goal.”
A new, merged organization, he writes, would “provide the ‘reset’ needed to develop true synergies focused on improving our relationship with our domestic funding partners and our foreign end-users by giving them confidence that we truly are committed to working together along the value chain.”
Jones says he’s sorry to see Twynstra go and has appreciated the views the former board member brought to the table. He agrees that there has been a history of acrimonious relations between white bean growers and dealers and says the board believes the dealers and the commission are responsible for the current situation. BF
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Bean board merger archive
Comments
Like so many other boards, producers found a need to organize, to provide strength and symmetry for production and marketing of a specialty crop. Also like so many other past examples the buyers marketers and processors are never satisfied until they have total control of price setting, grade, moisture setting for the industry all at the producers expense.
You have been blessed to have Mr Twynstra, his wisdom and experience on your board. The commission with a lengthy record of blunders to its name should be concerned that this (Twynstra) resignation notice is a clear indicator something is amiss.
I know Steve to be a level headed clear thinking person. He is not a quitter. It takes a real leader to take a stand that he can not support or lead the people he represents in what he believes is an erroneous direction.
It takes a real man at the commission, to match Twynstra's stand, to step back take a deep breath and understand this is a producers board to serve producers.
You are already loosing specialty bean acres... get this right. Make sure your guiding principals are clear and defend-able to producers. Without producers production it soon won't matter.
Real men and true leaders can admit to a mistake and new thought. Change is inevitable ... success is optional.
Real men and true leaders can admit to a mistake and new thought. Change is inevitable ... success is optional
Find one true farmleader realman who will standup
who sit on commission have grown white and coloured beans and had to deal with being raped by the place of delivery ? To many times the discount schedules that are inplace are not adheared to . There is no premium for quality but the discounts are implemented by dealer staff which is not governed by Ag Canada or the likes . Then when it comes time to cash in depending who you are your contact person at the elevator can and have work in some growers favor and maybe changed the deductions ao offered the grower a side deal on chemicals or fertilizer . The dealers want the power and control and it looks like the commission is going to give it to them . The WBPMB was started to for a reason years ago . Yet we have those who have never grown these crops making the decision ? Just does not sound right to me .
As far as loosing specialty bean acres ... that don't matter jack ! There have been beans coming into this province to be processed and likely mixed in with our home grown ones for years . Would you call that product of Canada ? Funny thing could be how many beans from Ont could end up being sold and shipped to Michigan and then sold and shipped again to be processed in Hensall ?
It is now more than ever obvious that the commission is like gov. They help to make decisions they know nothing about and the farmer is pawn .
farming will always have winners and losers
but seems like the masses are losers generation after generation , should we be questioning whether we have good wise Ministers and farm leaders. We should question what is the makings of a wise minister or leader, or is it just popularity. We should look back at past Omafra ministers and ask were they really that good, were are they at today , should we if had the chance hold them accountable for their screw ups. Why is it in Canada we do not have good watchdogs to prod the powers to be?
We need to have imput into how the person is picked for minister and not just the whim of the premier. We need to understand how the briefing files of the minister comes into being
We brought boards into being in the last 50 years , they were needed now we make changes but are they well thought out non political changes?
There is some big questions on agri and farm issues needs to be addressed because withfarmers aging , the face of farming will change in the next 10 years for better or worse
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty resigns from office
what is the real story????????
Is the information in the voting package sent to growers by the commission correct ? That is the first thing that sets off alarm bells in my head .
Next how are the questions worded ?
How will the results be interpreted ?
Should the vote question should be a Yes or No question or will it be a sliding scale answer choice like was presented at grower meetings which is and can lead to skewed results ?
I read with interest the add by the OCBGA in the Ontario Farmer this week about the producer vote "A Time For Change" . Now after attending meetings I wonder why the OCBGA add reads the way it does . Under the White bean Grower side .... I am not sure that the checkoff fee was too high . There only are two options for marketing and if you kill the power of the board you will only have one option which will be a contract with a dealer . I am not sure you can lower the costs much more . Research and promotion has been done for years .
On the OCBGA side .... Was grower communication not part of their job all along ? There may well not be a grower checkoff increase but then they did not have a way or means of tracking it any way. When you only have one main market and that is by contract you are not going to see a major swing in market information . I am not sure where they think the increase in dollars is going to come from for research and promotion .
I would encourage all who can vote to vote . But know what you are really voting for .
Post new comment