OFVGA considers new approaches to funding

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association is looking at a new method of funding the organization to replace the current system, says re-elected chair Ray Duc.

Currently, the organization gets the majority of its funding for its $1.2 million annual budget through container tolls, but “not all horticultural producers buy baskets,” says Duc, who was re-elected at the organization’s annual meeting in Niagara Falls Monday. For example, grape growers don’t buy baskets but the Ontario Grape Growers organization makes a voluntary payment to fund the umbrella association. However, it’s “at a level far below what some other growers are paying,” he says.

In addition, some growers pay nothing to fund the group, while others “pay quite a bit,” says Duc, a grape and tender fruit grower from Niagara-on-the-Lake. He will be serving his second one-year term as chair this year. Duc is in his eleventh year as an association director and had previously served a four-year term on the board.

The fruit and vegetable growers association returns any surpluses to the various commodities “proportionally to what they give us,” Duc says. This past year, the surplus was about $250,000.

The organization is recommending funding be based on a grower’s “net sales so everybody’s paying a fair share,” Duc says. The organization will get a percentage of each grower’s net sales to be collected through Agricorp. Details on what the percentage will be still have to be finalized.

The proposal will face some opposition, Duc says, “so we’re going to wait until the timing is right, probably after the (provincial) election and go from there.” Duc adds that government regulations will have to be changed for the proposal to be implemented.

The major matter for the fruit and vegetable growers this year is the provincial government’s minimum wage review studying the process of how to implement future increases. Duc says the government-appointed committee is slated to issue its report at the end of February, beginning of March.

“We’re intensely lobbying on that,” he says. The association’s position is the government should maintain the current level and use the Consumer Price Index to guide future annual increases. Currently the minimum wage is $10.25 per hour.

“We can budget for that and know what’s coming,” he says. But in the current situation where political reasons are used to advance wage increases there can be huge jumps. “In the last seven years we’ve had a 50 per cent (minimum wage) increase and little or no increase in the price of fruit and vegetables.”

In other association news, CEO Art Smith is retiring after 10.5 years with the organization. He’ll stay in the position until June 30.

Duc says he will be missed. “He did a very good job for us and really turned the finances around. He got us going in a good direction.”

The association will set up a committee to hire a new CEO.

Also at the annual meeting, a former government and industry crop protection specialist, Wayne Roberts, was posthumously given the organization’s Award of Merit at Monday night’s banquet. The award is given annually to an individual or organization that made outstanding contributions to the fruit and vegetable industry.

Roberts, who died last year, was a former employee with both the Canadian and Ontario governments. At the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, he directed the Integrated Pest Management programs. Starting in 1996, he worked for the Ontario Tender Fruit Producers Marketing Board and Grape Growers of Ontario where he directed their integrated pest management system development and crop protection efforts. He retired in 2010 but continued serving the industry until his death. BF