Ontario farm registration fee increase moves to next step

by SUSAN MANN

Farmers have until Nov. 2 to comment on a controversial proposal to increase the farm business registration fee to $195 starting next year.

The proposal was posted earlier in the month on the Ontario government’s Regulatory Registry.

One of the province’s three accredited farm groups, National Farmers Union (Ontario branch) wants to keep their current $150 fee even if fees for membership in the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario go up. “We’ll have to determine what we do from this point forward,” Farmers Union coordinator and Paisley farmer Grant Robertson says.

The Union’s options and legal implications will be discussed at a future regional council meeting. The group may lose accreditation if it doesn’t accept the fee increase, Robertson says.

All farm businesses with a gross annual income of $7,000 or more must register and pay the fee to one of three accredited farm groups in Ontario. The program was designed to provide stable operating funds to the groups.

The National Farmers Union is the smallest of the three farm groups. In 2008, 47,041 farm businesses were registered and 2,191 or five per cent, registered with the NFU. A total of 4,826, or 10 per cent, chose Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario and 85 per cent, 40,024, directed their fees to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

After registering and paying the fee, farm businesses can ask for a full refund from the group they selected. The refund rate for the OFA was about five per cent, for the Christian Farmers it was 10 per cent, and just over 1.5 per cent for the NFU.
 
Agricorp administers collection of the fee and charges accredited groups $8.90 per registrant. The fee may be increased for next year, says John Clement, general manager, Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario. A committee made up of the farm groups, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural will discuss that fee at a meeting in November.

Bette Jean Crews, federation president, says the farm groups haven’t had a fee increase since farm business registration began in 1993 and can be justified by matching the cost of living index. Farm organizations have taken on more responsibility, she adds.

CFFO president Henry Stevens doesn’t expect a major backlash from farmers. When he tells farmers the groups haven’t had an increase since the program began and that they don’t get the full amount the businesses pay because Agricorp’s administration fee is subtracted, most producers understand the need for it. Recently the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs quit paying this fee for the farm groups, leaving a substantial dent in their budgets.

Crews agrees that farmers support the increase. Last fall, the federation circulated the proposal to its counties “and we got 100 per cent support for a fee increase.” Similarly at a special general member meeting in March, 2008, there was “all sorts of support.”

CFFO’s preference would have been to get smaller increases more frequently, such as a $10 increase every two to three years, Stevens says. “When it became obvious that wasn’t going to happen we decided to support the OFA in terms of getting a one-time fee increase.”

CFFO has worked hard to tighten its budget, but “over time, as with any business, if your costs go up and your income stays stable you’re going to run into some trouble,” he says.

Comments can be made by email from that web site or by fax to Barry Sinclair, Property Tax And Farm Finance, at OMAFRA at (519) 826-3170. BF