The often data-starved Prairie organic sector has launched a new price-discovery and marketing tool for farmers.
“Organic grain producers in Canada have few resources to help them navigate the local and international marketplace,” said Marie-Eve Levert, director of business development for the new Organic Grain Hub, in a Sept. 21 news release. “There is a pricing information vacuum.”
The organic sector has “no central directory of organic grain buyers, and a lack of in-depth market analysis that is specifically tailored to the sector,” she said.
Data is critical to growing any crop, but for the organic industry, it’s been hard to come by.
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The Organic Grain Hub launched the same day as the release. The digital platform aggregates organic crop price data through a combination of crowd sourcing and bi-monthly calls with major Canadian organic buyers, according to the news release. It contains a directory of organic buyers and will be accompanied by a newsletter with industry analysis.
The hub was established by the Manitoba Organic Alliance in partnership with Prairie organic producer groups.
“While mainstream grain farmers have many sources to help them access up-to-date pricing, we noticed an important gap for organic grain growers, leaving these farmers at the mercy of the markets,” said Laura Telford, organic industry development specialist with Manitoba Agriculture.
Telford represents the province in a non-voting capacity with the Manitoba Organic Alliance.
Price discovery can be tough for organic farmers, said Royden Loewen in a December interview with the Co-operator. He is an organic farmer and a board member with the Manitoba Organic Development Fund, which backed the hub.
“Sometimes the buyers themselves don’t quite yet know what the price will be because they have to get a sense of what’s available and what isn’t. It can vary a lot from one buyer to the next,” he said.
READ MORE: Visit OrganicBiz for organic price updates.
General lack of data has been a sticking point for the sector.
“I don’t think there’s a bigger [issue in the sector],” Telford told the Co-operator in December.
The dearth of data encompasses imports, exports, sales, prices, crop acreage, farmer information and “pretty much everything” else, she said.
This affects business planning and also makes it difficult to prove the sector’s worth to business and government leaders, Telford said.
Part of the problem is that data isn’t collected. In the same December story, Canadian Organic Trade Association executive director Tia Loftsgard said it took several years of meetings with Statistics Canada to get questions about organics added to the 2021 agricultural census.
The association then paid to have that data extracted, she said.
Another issue arises when data is collected but can’t be used, such as when the data set is too small. Telford said this happens in Manitoba.
The Manitoba Agriculture Services Corporation might collect data on organic oat acres, but if only two farmers grow the crop, the data can’t be disclosed. There must be at least three farmers in a particular area to allow disclosure of acreage data.
