The idea of collaboration — and even mergers — among farm commodity groups has begun to find traction lately.
The latest round came at the annual CropConnect conference, which brings together a number of the smaller commodity organizations at a single event where they conduct their annual general meetings.
That event demonstrates the merits of this approach, providing farmers with a better event than any one group could generate on its own.
Nothing is ever simple of course, so there’s one key tension ever present.
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How will it be possible to balance the needs of the various commodities? How can proponents of smaller-acreage crops, for example, ensure their needs are being met and their industry promoted? How can it be guaranteed that oats won’t lose out to canola, for example?
At the same time, however, there’s compelling reasons for these groups to work together. They have so many shared interests, and in the case of the various field crops, they frequently represent much the same group of growers.
There aren’t many farmers growing wheat and barley in Manitoba who don’t also produce some canola, for example.
I think most farmers would agree that anything that reduces overhead and increases the amount of research projects and lobbying efforts is positive. It’s also going to be a helpful bulwark against ‘empire building’ that grows an organization for the benefit of those running it, rather than those it serves.
These tensions are nothing new, and they aren’t anything unique to the agriculture sector. Many other industries and businesses have grappled with it, and in these struggles, we may find a solution that helps address some of these tensions.
One of the catchphrases from the world of business and research we should pay attention to is “pre-competition.” That’s where members of a sector — let’s use the life science sector as an example — have a large shared interest. For example, they all benefit from charting the entire human genome.
In the early days of this discipline, this was seen as a herculean task impossible for any one organization to do. Better, the researchers decided, to collaborate on this big piece, than pursue their own interests after the legwork was done.
The result was the Human Genome Project, sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), which pulled on the resources and expertise of 20 key universities and research institutes in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Germany, Canada, and China.
There’s no arguing with results. In just over 10 years — dramatically ahead of its expected 15-year schedule — the researchers successfully mapped virtually the entire reference human genome and its more than three billion nucleotides.
In the ensuing 15 years, the information has been applied to everything from molecular medicine to research into human evolution. It has helped us understand better how to fight viruses, identify mutations linked to cancer, and also acted as a model for other similar undertakings, such as mapping the corn genome.
In Canadian agriculture a similar collaborative effort has evolved to resolve grain transportation issues. True, anything involving lobbying government is more art than science, but these issues affect many shippers of many commodities.
The various commodity groups have worked together, and even with other bulk shippers outside their own sector, to present a unified front and a shared vision for a better system to move bulk commodities to port position. Rather than all speaking independently, they surrendered some autonomy in the interest of making some real progress.
Again, it’s hard to argue with results. The outlines of upcoming transportation legislation appear to be poised to address most of the key issues the industry raised. Perhaps everyone didn’t get exactly what they wanted, but this particular effort appears to have yielded more tangible improvement than any other effort in recent memory.
Various commodities will always have their own unique interests and a desire to see their crops succeed. But at the same time, they will also represent many of the same farmers on the same issues. It is possible for them to compete for acres while working together in other areas.
As the people paying the bills, you should insist on it.
Correction
In my last editorial (Biofuels fight, Feb. 23) I am guilty of some faulty math. In error I calculated ethanol use of corn from U.S. corn exports, not total production. The total amount of U.S. corn used for ethanol production actually tops five billion bushels, rather than 400 million bushels as I stated. My apologies for any confusion.
