Get it in writing, urges GFO

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is responsible for the divisive environment between the province’s grain farmers and beekeepers, says a Grain Farmers of Ontario spokesman.

CEO Barry Senft made the remarks in response to questions about a notice the organization sent out to members advising them to get a signed contract with beekeepers before allowing them to place hives on their property. Traditionally beekeepers have placed their hives on grain farmers’ land using an informal agreement and without written contracts.

photo: Kathleen Wynne

In a telephone interview while on a farm tour near Stratford Tuesday, Wynne says she’s not “trying to divide people. But I am trying to find the best solution to the challenges of pollinator health.”

As both premier and the province’s former agriculture minister she has worked hard to bring everyone together, she says. “Everyone has had either a place at the table or the opportunity to have a place at the table to have this discussion.”

Ever since she was agriculture minister two years ago she has advocated for “a path between the very polarized positions that had been taken” of a ban on neonicotinoids or a do-nothing approach. “We’ve really tried to work with the sector as we go along.”

The neonicotinoid discussion “isn’t about picking sides,” she adds. “I don’t think there’s anybody in the province who would argue that not having healthy pollinators is good policy.”

The government plans to monitor its regulations to ensure “we end up with a regime that protects pollinators but at the same time protects the economy of the grain and oilseed farmers,” Wynne says.

The Grain Farmers’ advice comes two weeks before Ontario government regulations aimed at cutting neonicotinoid use among provincial corn and soybean growers kick in. The new rules phase in measures over two years governing the sale and use of neonicotinoid treated corn and soybean seeds on farms. The goal is to cut the number of acres planted using the treated seeds by 80 per cent by 2017.

Senft says the organization provided all members with its notice signed by chair Mark Brock and a one-page memo from lawyer Rob Wilson of Wilson Spurr LLP in St. Catharines. The information was released in response to a resolution passed at the Grain Farmers semi-annual meeting in March requesting information on “what tools farmers need going into this new requirement,” Senft says.

There have also been previous discussions with farmers and questions about whether producers should continue hosting beekeepers once the new regulations kick in.

“This was just a heads up to producers that this isn’t business as usual,” Senft says. “It’s a new regulatory environment for our farmers to be working within.”

Wilson’s letter says the new Pesticides Act regulations “will leave most grain farmers with no alternative but to return to traditional spraying for pest control/crop protection.”

Both grain farmers and beekeepers have said those applications may be more harmful to bees than the neonicotinoid seed-based treatment, Wilson says.

“It is important that this risk be communicated to and understood and accepted by beekeepers before they are allowed to place their hives on a grain farmers property,” Wilson says, noting beekeepers’ acceptance of the risk should be in writing.

He admits there’s no guarantee the document would fully protect grain farmers.

Ontario Beekeepers’ Association president Tibor Szabo says landowner agreements are not new. “A lot of times it’s a verbal agreement.”

Furthermore, the advice to grain farmers to get written agreements with beekeepers before placing hives on their land “doesn’t take into account bees fly five kilometres to forge for their resources,” he says.

The written document also won’t absolve farmers of their responsibility for damage from pesticides, he says. “When you apply chemicals to the environment, the Canadian law is whoever released the chemical is legally responsible for whatever effects there are.”

Szabo says Grain Farmers’ notice is “a fear mongering tactic. I’m not sure why they’re doing it.”
  
Wilson says failure to get the documentation means many grain farmers will need to end their previously co-operative arrangement with beekeepers or accept the risk themselves.

Senft says Grain Farmers doesn’t have an exact number of how many farmers host beekeepers on their land.

It isn’t yet clear how many farmers will actually obtain written contracts with beekeepers or deny them access to their land. Szabo says he’s heard of one beekeeper so far who has been kicked off a grain farmer’s land. But he’s also heard of many cases where grain farmers have offered land to beekeepers. BF