by SUSAN MANN
The Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers board is meeting with the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission next month to find out why it’s proposing to rescind the board’s price negotiating powers. In a related development, several Ontario farm groups are supporting the notion of grower choice in marketing commodities.
On June 28, the commission posted a proposal on the Ontario Regulatory Registry to remove the negotiating authority of the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers marketing board and add provisions to turn the board into an industry advisory committee. Comments are due Aug. 12.
Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Don McCabe says the federation supports the notion “that there is grower choice in how a farmer chooses to market their particular commodity” — and that includes the choice to negotiate as a group for their contracts.
The federation has sent out a letter to commodities and other groups asking them to support the principle of grower choice in marketing commodities. The letter will be forwarded to the commission. Representatives from both the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario and National Farmers Union – Ontario say they support the position.
McCabe said the Ontario federation became involved after the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers, as members of the federation, “asked if we could discuss this issue” with them.
When contacted by phone on Tuesday, Jim Clark, vice chair of the commission, said he couldn’t answer questions about the commission’s vegetable board proposals.
“All questions and all press are going through the chair (Geri Kamenz),” said Clark, who is also executive director of the Ontario Cattle Feeders Association.
Kamenz hasn’t yet responded to Better Farming’s requests for comment. Better Farming isn’t the only one waiting to hear from Kamenz.
Chatham-Kent-Essex MPP Rick Nicholls asked several questions in a July 19 letter to the commission, including why the commission was proposing to remove the vegetable board’s price negotiating powers. Nicholls said in a July 26 press release he didn’t yet have a response back from the commission, despite asking it to provide answers as soon as possible since the consultation period for the proposal ends Aug. 12.
Nicholls also hosted a town hall meeting Monday night in Leamington to give growers a chance to talk about the commission’s proposal. More than 100 farmers attended, he said in the release.
“Concerns were voiced by many who believe ramming through a revolutionary upheaval on Ontario’s processing vegetable marketing system is an affront to 70 years of work by growers, processors and government,” he said in the release. Nicholls was referring to the vegetable board being in existence for 70 years.
Another meeting to discuss the issue is scheduled to get underway this morning in Norfolk County.
Nicholls said he and Haldimand-Norfolk MPP Toby Barrett, the Progressive Conservatives agriculture critic who also attended Monday’s meeting, have concluded “dismantling the orderly marketing system for processing vegetables will set a precedent for the orderly marketing of other farm products.”
Another group waiting for answers from the commission is the processing vegetable board. It still doesn’t have a response to its pressing questions, including what specifically is wrong with the present marketing system and why more time hasn’t been allocated to such a drastic change, said chair Francis Dobbelaar. It submitted a request to the commission in early July asking for more information and details on the proposal.
Dobbelaar noted the entire vegetable board is scheduled to meet with the commission on Aug. 3 in Guelph. Hopefully they’ll get answers there, he said.
Processing vegetables are mainly grown in southwestern Ontario, in a region stretching from Simcoe to Windsor. The board represents about 400 growers.
“We’re hoping to ask the commission our questions and get an understanding of exactly what they mean by what they’re saying,” Dobbelaar said. “It’s obviously a significant change to the regulations, considering how long they’ve been in effect and the history to them.”
There were many people both in government and individuals in industry who formed “this thing over 70 years. To take it off the table like that is generating a lot of questions,” he said.
Dobbelaar noted the vegetable board respects the commission’s authority “to make changes to orderly marketing. We’re hoping to work with them really closely to come to some sort of better adjustment to the regulations.”
In the meantime, the commission’s proposal is already creating uncertainty for the vegetable board in its ability to conduct business.
“We’re going to be going into negotiations (with processors) within three months and with the ball up in the air, it’s already creating a lot of chaos,” Dobbelaar said.
In addition to questioning the proposal itself, many people are raising concerns about the process the commission is using to suggest the changes, saying the 45-conusltation period is not enough time for growers and others in the middle of cropping and harvesting processing vegetables to comment. Furthermore, there should be public hearings, a detailed economic analysis study and a producer vote to consider such a dramatic change to the workings of the board.
As for the processing vegetable board’s positions on those ideas, Dobbelaar said, “the first thing we have to do is meet with the commission.”
However, the vegetable board does agree with suggestions there needs to be a detailed economic analysis included with the proposal.
Barrett asked in a July 15 letter to Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Jeff Leal that the consultation period be extended past the initial Aug. 12 deadline and past harvest time and that public hearings be held.
The Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario also has concerns that the 45-day comment period isn’t enough time to deal with such a dramatic change. Furthermore, the commission’s proposal is “very vague on what they’re planning on changing,” noted president Clarence Nywening.
“We’re very concerned about it,” he said. “Members are phoning us and asking what’s going on? They think the (processing vegetable marketing) system is working fine and now they’re concerned it’s going to be dismantled or changed.”
More time is needed for consultations, he added, to ensure that what’s being proposed “is of benefit for our farmers and our processing industry in Ontario and Canada.”
Similar to Barrett, the Christian federation is also pushing for a longer consultation period and public hearings.
In addition to supporting the Ontario federation’s position on grower choice in how farmers market vegetable crops, the Christian federation plans to send its own submission to both the commission and the Ontario agriculture ministry on behalf of its members, he said.
Emery Huszka, NFU-O president and Region 3 coordinator, said the commission’s proposal is a “very low blow. One of the fundamental rights of a farmer is to work with other farmers to produce a crop to actually make a living. We work with our partners, including the food processors, but that does not mean giving up all of our autonomy.”
Huszka added Minister Leal should show true leadership and publicly outline where the desire to remove the vegetable board’s price negotiating authority is coming from. “Is this coming as a proposal from his ministry or is this a directive from the Liberal Party?” BF
Comments
Long-forgotten and completely-shoved to the sidelines of everyone's memory amidst the hysteria and flap-doodle about farmers rights to self-determination is that former Ontario Ag Minister, William A Stewart, created the Ontario Egg Producers Marketing Board without any vote or "grower choice" by anybody.
Therefore, since something as drastic as supply management can be created by Ministerial fiat, completely without any semblance of "grower choice" at all, then altering the way any agricultural marketing system is structured is equally-fair game for any government.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Mr. Thompson, you missed the point. Your total distraction with all that be quota has densely clouded your views.
Mr. Kamenz and the Commission is evasive when asked direct questions. Mr. Kamenz by all accounts is an intelligent man with an extensive agricultural background. So why is he so dodgy when pressed to explain an unwarranted change concerning price negotiations?
Remember a few things.
All boards under the commission are agencies of the government.
Our Premier did a stint as Ag. Minister. She is tight with our PM. We presently have an Ag. Minister in name only.
The TPP and TTIP with the ISDS will be coming to a small town near you very soon.
The ISDS will allow multinational corporations to sue a government if those corporations can prove that government imposed barriers are impeding their future profits.
The boards with collective negotiating powers, as agents of the government are creating barriers to multinationals.
Direct contracting is an acceptable method under the TPP and TTIP.
The TPP has been signed and Canada is falling in step with other countries getting ready to do business with multinational companies.
That is behind Mr. Kamenz statement when he said "processors say the current marketing structure is rigid and inflexible, creates barriers, and leaves them at a competitive disadvantage".
'Nuff said. You can bet this stuff was done long ago but is just playing out now. The only question left is what did Premier/Ag. Minister Wynne get in exchange for dismantling our marketing boards?
The above poster travels to every corner of the fear-mongering, conjecture and conspiracy theory map to try to demonstrate that the proposed changes to the single-desk marketing system for vegetables are "unwarranted". However, the OFPMC obviously believes these changes are warranted and backs it up with basic economics and a grasp (albeit long-overdue) of the obvious.
I, therefore, have missed nothing.
It's a "no-brainer" that an adversarial system, such as the single-desk system currently used to market vegetables, produces adversaries which, in turn, generates (and in this case, enshrines) a marketing system that is " rigid, inflexible, creates barriers and leaves them (processors) at a competitive disadvantage." according to Mr. Kamenz who, in this case, seems to have, as odd as it may seem in an agricultural system profoundly in love with barriers, rigidity and inflexibility (can anyone say "supply management"?), a profound grasp of the obvious.
I mean, really, vegetable people, consider this:
(1) Hogs don't die because of the lack of a single-desk, adversarial marketing system.
(2) Wheat farmers are offered, and get, a premium for growing a certain type of wheat which wouldn't have happened under a single-desk system.
(3) White bean growers and edible soybean growers get rewarded for certain types growing practices, something unheard of during the days of single-desk selling.
While the concept of "value-chain-partners" is obviously anathema to vegetable farmers, the NFU and conspiracy theorists like the above poster, it's the way the world works in 2016 and it works just fine, thank you.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
for some reason i seem to notice posts on this site that continually use fear- mongering ,conjecture, and conspiracy theory to berate, ridicule, hate supply management. but apparently that's fine.
I challenge the above poster, and/or anyone else, to cite even one instance in which I used any of:
(1) fear-mongering
(2) conjecture
(3) conspiracy theory
to criticize supply management. Every criticism of supply management, by me and everyone else on this site is:
(A) 200 years of economic reality
(B) the on-farm reality faced by non-supply managed farmers
(C) the reality faced by fresh pizza makers and others
(D) the reality of cross-border shopping
If anything, it's supply management supporters, for example, who continually fear-monger about food safety, especially since food safety has everything to do with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and nothing to do with the marketing system itself.
I mean, really, supply management invented fear-mongering and half truths - why criticize me for quite-correctly pointing out the false-half of supply management's 50 years of half-truths?
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
1. It would appear you conveniently omitted the OFA from your so called conspiracy list.
2.Furthermore, it would appear the OFPMC is simply aligning itself with the latest so called "bogus free trade policies" and biased upcoming trade policies.
3. Finally, it would appear that many in agriculture have simply forgotten there is no such thing as "Free Trade" ....only "Government Biased Managed Trade". Want proof? Both Hillary and Donald have indicated in the media that they won't abide by proposed free trade rules if they aren't biased in favour of the U.S.
It is painfully obvious that your comprehension of personal opinions are skewed against collective negotiations. No where in the previous post was there even the slightest suggestion that changes to the marketing system was "warranted". There was no fear-mongering or conspiracies. The facts are:
Kamenz is the closest/only thing we have in a way of agricultural representation. Our government does not/never had farmers' best interests on their radar.
TPP negotiations started in 2006. 2008 was a watershed year for marketing boards operating within the commission.
Canada signed the TPP but has yet to ratify the agreement.
Chapter 9 deals the Investor-State Dispute Settlement clause whereby governments may be sued if multinationals can prove there are government imposed barriers that could impede a corporations profit/future profit. Kamenz openly admits government agencies with collective price negotiations are "barriers and leaves processors at a competitive disadvantage".
Signatories have said they will either eliminate or reduce tariffs and other restrictive policies from agricultural products.
Agricultural barriers have been on the table longer than most people willing to admit. The vegetable board is not the first board to be affected and they will not be the last. Who is next?
Many farmers do not see what is coming. We need a new chair someone who looks at both sides and looks at both the big and small picture.we can not afford to pay Ontario wages and imputs and get the price that is the same as Mexico where the standards and wages are much lower. One food processor was looking at a joint deal with Cuba. HA
The present Chair has over stayed his appointed time frame. I wondered why he was not replaced as per schedule.
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