SaskCanola and SaskFlax said Wednesday their new “management collaboration” will translate to efficiencies for both commissions with “a full staff complement to support both boards.”

Both organizations will now operate out of the current SaskCanola office at Innovation Place, a research and technology park next to the University of Saskatchewan campus in Saskatoon.

SaskCanola’s current executive director Tracy Broughton will manage both organizations as their new exec.

The two organizations emphasized they maintain their separate boards of directors and governance structures under the new collaboration, and canola and flax levies will still be collected separately.

“Finding administrative and operational efficiencies within our industry ensures that growers’ levy dollars are put to the best use,” SaskFlax board chair Greg Sundquist of Watrous said in a joint release.

“Our commissions were created with similar mandates and key focus areas — research, extension and market development. We are excited about the opportunities this arrangement brings to oilseed growers.”

“A lot of flax growers in our province are also going to have canola in their rotation, so it makes sense,” SaskCanola board chair Charlene Bradley of Stranraer added in the same release.

The new arrangement removes a question mark over the management of SaskFlax, which in late August put out a call with the Flax Council of Canada seeking a joint executive director for SaskFlax and president for the council, with a deadline of Oct. 21.

A SaskCanola representative said Thursday the Flax Council of Canada is not involved in the SaskCanola/SaskFlax arrangement.

SaskCanola, set up in 1991, is a farmer-led, levy-supported organization backing research, advocacy and market development work, while SaskFlax, operating since 1996, supports research and market development through checkoffs on flaxseed and flax straw. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post SaskCanola, SaskFlax merge offices, management appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The WSJ report did not mention the size of Starboard’s stake in Elanco, which makes treatments for pets and livestock and has a market value of about $15.27 billion, as per Refinitiv data (all figures US$).

Elanco did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Starboard is the second activist investor to show interest in Elanco recently, after Sachem Head Capital Management LP last year made a roughly $1.2 billion bet on the company and added its head Scott Ferguson to Elanco’s board.

Elanco was a division of Eli Lilly and Co. until 2018, when the drugmaker spun it out in an initial public offering. Less than a year later, Elanco struck a deal to buy Bayer’s animal health business for over $7 billion.

— Reporting for Reuters by Mrinalika Roy in Bangalore.

The post Second activist investor buys into Elanco appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Cigi, the Canadian International Grains Institute, on Tuesday announced the new funding model, plus a new governance model setting up a new 10-member board of directors representing its sponsor organizations.

Winnipeg-based Cigi said the new funding formula will see the three wheat commissions and seven grain firms provide $7.7 million over the next two years, representing the institute’s “core funding.”

The seven grain firms supporting Cigi will include:

• privately-held Winnipeg grain companies Richardson International, Paterson Grain and Parrish and Heimbecker;
• Viterra, the Canadian grain arm of commodity firm Glencore;
• the Canadian arm of U.S. agrifood firm Cargill;
• G3 Canada, the privatized former Canadian Wheat Board (CWB); and
• five farmer-owned grain terminal companies in Saskatchewan and Alberta, represented by the Inland Terminal Association of Canada.

The Alberta Wheat Commission, Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission and the Manitoba Wheat and Barley Growers Association will provide their shares of Cigi funding through their respective wheat checkoffs.

According to the wheat commissions in a separate statement, Cigi has asked the three commissions for funding that matches grain industry contributions over the next two crop years.

The commissions’ funding for Cigi replaces farmer checkoff funding the institute received through the Western Canadian Deduction. That checkoff, set up in 2012 by then-federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz following the deregulation of the CWB, sunsets on July 31, Cigi noted Tuesday.

“Today’s announcement represents the culmination of months of consultations involving the value chain,” JoAnne Buth, Cigi’s CEO since 2014, said in a release Tuesday. “We are extremely pleased that the provincial wheat commissions and the grain companies and handlers developed a consensus on a sustainable funding and governance model for Cigi.”

Where Cigi’s board had previously reflected its founding organizations, with members from the federal government, CWB and Canadian Grain Commission, the institute in 2013 reworked its governance to include representation from farmers as well as exporters, processors and others in the industry.

Under the latest funding and governance model, however, the first board will include five representatives from the wheat commissions and five representatives from the grain handler/exporter sector, elected June 29 at Cigi’s annual meeting.

Kevin Bender, a Sylvan Lake, Alta. farmer and the Alberta Wheat Commission’s vice-chair, will chair Cigi’s new board. Brent Watchorn, Richardson International’s executive vice-president for marketing, will be the new board’s vice-chair, while Jim Smolik, head of corporate affairs for Cargill Canada, will be board secretary.

New board members also include Drew Baker of the Manitoba Wheat and Barley Growers Association; Bill Gehl and Harvey Brooks of the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission;  Gary Stanford of the Alberta Wheat Commission; Trent Rude of Viterra; Jean-Marc Ruest of Richardson International; and (unavailable for the photo above) Ward Weisensel of G3 Canada.

Three previous Cigi board members, including chair Murdoch MacKay and directors Henry Van Ankum and Lawrence Yakielashek, will remain with the board as observers “to provide continuity during the transition,” Cigi said.

Randy Johner and Jim Wilson, farmer members of Cigi’s previous board, will retire as directors.

Bender, in Tuesday’s release, hailed the outgoing board members’ “foresight and determination… in guiding Cigi through a period of significant industry change.”

The new board, he said, comes to an organization with “a long and distinguished history of working on behalf of farmers and industry to promote and demonstrate the quality and functionality of Canadian grain in international markets.”

Cigi, set up as a not-for-profit body in 1972 with federal government and farmer funding via the CWB, is now billed as an independent organization working with field crop value chains in Canada and internationally.

The institute today provides applied research, training and technical support services to drive development and use of Canadian crops — including wheat, durum, barley, canola and other oilseeds, pulses and other special crops such as canaryseed and mustard — for domestic and export markets.

Cigi, which still also gets federal funding via the AgriMarketing and AgriInnovation programs, broadened its activities in recent years to include pulse crop product and market development.

That pulse crop work, Cigi said, is now backed by the Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program, Pulse Canada, Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions, Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers, Manitoba’s Agri-Food Research and Development Initiative (Manitoba Agriculture) and Warburtons. — AGCanada.com Network

The post Prairie wheat commissions, grain firms to fund Cigi appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The commission last week released proposed amendments to provincial Regulations 441 and 400, which would set up an eight-member OPVG board with an OFPMC-appointed chair. The amendments are up for public comment until July 31.

Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal dismissed the OPVG’s directors in March when an impasse to a new contract between tomato growers and the main processors in the province could not be broken.

Leal then appointed former ag minister Elmer Buchanan as a trustee to assume the association’s power to negotiate contracts with processors for processing tomatoes for 2017.

Under the commission’s proposal as posted June 15, the first new OPVG board wouldn’t be formed until this fall. Four board members would be elected at that time for two-year terms, and would sit with four commission-appointed members holding one-year terms.

In 2018, the commission said, the terms of the four appointed members would end and their replacements would be elected for two-year terms, and the four members elected in 2017 would continue their terms for their second year.

“At the election in 2018, all board positions, with the exception of the appointed chair, would be transitioned to elected positions,” the commission said.

The eight members would eventually be elected from the OPVG’s three existing district committees, with four members coming from District 1 and two from each of Districts 2 and 3. The board would need a majority of members present to hold votes, and the chair would cast a tie-breaking vote if need be.

Instead of only being able to elect members to the district vegetable growers’ committees, growers would be able to elect anyone from their district directly to the board through an anonymous election process, the commission proposes.

Members would serve two-year terms, staggered so half of the board members would be elected each year, with the other half elected in the following year.

The new OPVG chair would be appointed by the commission for an initial term of two years and eligible for reappointment, up to a total term limit of 10 years. The amendments also lay out new limits on consecutive terms of service and lifetime service for board members.

The Processing Vegetable Growers’ Alliance, a grower group formed after the OPVG board was dismissed, said Thursday in a letter it has “very serious concerns about the proposed amendments that would effectively allow the government to take control of the OPVG board for another year.”

The OPVG, the PVGA said, “currently has no expert advisory staff or board, and is operated by a commission-appointed trustee.”

The PVGA said the commission’s proposed amendments “will put the voice of the processing growers at a minority, with government appointees making up the majority of the OPVG board until the end of 2018.”

The processing vegetable sector, the PVGA said, is “best served by the grassroots growers who produce the 14 different processing vegetables grown in Ontario. And a fully elected grower board is in the best position to accurately and adequately represent our sector.”

The PVGA, describing the province’s processing vegetable growers as having been “silenced” for almost four months, urged growers to comment on the proposed amendments before the deadline.

The alliance said its goal is “to restore a fully elected OPVG board with the authority to negotiate prices, terms, conditions and contracts for Ontario’s processing vegetable growers.” — AGCanada.com Network

The post Ontario redrafts vegetable grower organization governance appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Agriculture Minister Oneil Carlier on Thursday announced the appointment of a new eight-member board for the provincial Agriculture Financial Services Corp., (AFSC), which has been handled by an interim board since last summer.

The previous board of directors was dismissed in June after the province’s chief internal auditor filed a report raising concerns about oversight of senior executive expenses and procurement practices at AFSC, mainly during the period from 2011 through 2015.

Three unnamed senior AFSC executives were also “relieved from active duty,” the province said at the time.

“As a board, our priority is to make sure AFSC management continues to keep pace with the evolving needs of agribusiness and conducts its operations in a transparent and accountable manner that reflects the expectations of Albertans,” Jennifer Wood, the new board’s chair, said in a release Thursday.

Wood is an Edmonton-based agrologist, partner in a private equity holding company focused on agribusiness, and co-operator of her family’s cattle ranch. She has 15 years of board experience in a “variety of roles, across sectors,” the province said.

Directors on the new board also include:

• Jerry Bouma, an agrifood management consultant in Edmonton;
• Gordon Cove, the Red Deer-based former CEO of the province’s now-dissolved Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency (ALMA);
• ag coach and farmer Peter Galloway of Fort Saskatchewan;
• Jo-Ann Hall, a former provincial assistant deputy agriculture minister, from Stony Plain;
• Harvey Hagman, president of Hagman Cattle Co., at Mayerthorpe;
• chartered professional accountant Anna Harder of Camrose; and
• Kiren Singh of Canmore, a financial executive with background in the energy and ag sectors.

In the new board members’ biographies, the province noted most of them also come to the table with years of board governance experience.

“The new board will provide essential oversight to help ensure that AFSC’s programs and services are delivered effectively and continue to meet the needs of rural Alberta,” Carlier said.

All eight new board members were chosen through an open recruitment process, the province emphasized in its release. — AGCanada.com Network

The post Alberta recruits new board for AFSC appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Three unnamed senior executives at Agriculture Financial Services Corp. (AFSC) have also been “relieved from active duty,” the province said in a release Monday.

The province on Monday named ATB Financial’s vice-president for business and agriculture, Ed Knash, to serve as AFSC’s interim CEO.

An interim AFSC board, made up of certain senior provincial government staff, has also been convened, but the province didn’t name the new board members in its release.

Monday’s announcements come with the release of a report by the province’s chief internal auditor, examining expenses and procurements at AFSC, mainly over the period from 2011 through 2015.

“The report’s findings point to a culture of entitlement in the last administration that Albertans firmly rejected in the election, a culture of entitlement that will not be tolerated by this government,” Agriculture Minister Oneil Carlier said Monday.

The report, dated April 28, has now been “handed over to law enforcement for review to determine if additional actions are required,” the province said.

The auditor’s report also called for a “further human resource investigation… to consider appropriate disciplinary action against the implicated senior executives.”

The auditor’s review called for oversight of senior executive expenses and procurement activities — and the AFSC code of conduct — to be “strengthened.”

However, for AFSC to carry out those recommendations “requires the continued confidence of the (agriculture) minister in the current board,” the auditor’s report added.

The recruitment process for a new AFSC board starts “immediately,” the province said. None of the dismissed board members were named in Monday’s release.

The auditor’s report, in the form published online, also doesn’t identify any of the three senior executives by name. The report also has at least one name redacted.

The province said its report found some expenses related to travel, meals and hospitality were “not necessary for AFSC’s business” and that expenses were “generally not properly authorized.”

The report looked at expense claims and corporate credit card bills for the three senior executives, plus those of an executive assistant who did not take part in the activities involved, over the five-year period.

In all, the expenses incurred for travel, accommodations, mileage, meals, hospitality, conference fees and other costs during the time period totalled $899,363.94.

From those, expenses that were “not clearly reasonable or necessary” were identified, the auditor said, citing limousine travel and luxury box tickets at Edmonton Oilers games.

Over $341,000 out of the total claims reviewed were identified as going toward out-of-province and international travel to meet with reinsurance companies, the auditor said, noting AFSC already contracts with brokers to serve as intermediaries in dealing and negotiating with reinsurers.

The AFSC board chairman, the auditor said, is responsible for “authorizing and therefore challenging” the expenses of one of the corporation’s executives. “The results of this examination indicate that the challenge function needs to be strengthened,” the report said.

Also, the report said, three specific AFSC senior executives received “gifts, such as event tickets, meals and golf from vendors, and vendors covered costs related to AFSC corporate events.”

AFSC’s procurement policy, the report noted, prohibits acceptance of gifts “of any kind” from vendors.

Also, the province said Monday, for “more than half of the vendors examined, AFSC’s requirements for fair, open, competitive or transparent procurement processes were not met.” — AGCanada.com Network

The post Alberta sacks AFSC board over top brass’ expenses appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Ballots have been mailed out and board elections are now underway for the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission (SaskWheat) and the Saskatchewan Barley Development Commission (SaskBarley). Each commission has three vacant board positions and seven candidates competing for those spots.

The province’s wheat and barley growers have a vested interest in the commissions, as they fund them directly through per-tonne levies (52 cents for wheat, 50 cents for barley) — but last year, fewer than 10 per cent of eligible voters mailed in ballots.

New campaigning techniques may attract more voters this year — but the styles and strategies being used have raised complaints elsewhere and leave some wondering whether the electioneering might weigh, even inadvertently, on the commissions’ governance.

“The days of snail mail are kind of behind us,” said Daryl Fransoo on a town hall conference call last Wednesday, which attracted more than 1,000 listeners to hear the views of six of the 14 SaskWheat and SaskBarley candidates.

This year, board candidates are using websites, Twitter, brochures and group campaigns to get their messages out.

Team approach

In both elections, three of the seven candidates have formed slates and are campaigning jointly. They’ve promoted each other on Twitter, created joint web sites and organized and paid for their own open conference call to give voters a forum to direct questions to the six candidates.

“Doing it individually would have been very expensive,” says Zenneth Faye, a current SaskBarley director and one of three candidates working together to campaign for positions on the SaskBarley board.

With Daryl Fransoo and Larry Spratt, Faye is a member of what’s called Team Barley, but he takes exception to the term “slate.”

“We’re not a slate, we’re a team,” he says. “To me, a slate means that you have to vote for me and the other two. That’s not the way this is meant to be. You can vote for whoever you want.”

Faye says he brought the team together to help increase voter turnout and to ensure there would be strong candidates on the ballot. “I came across these young individuals that have lots of energy and diverse backgrounds and expertise.”

Scott Hepworth, a member of TeamWheat, says he chose to run as part of a team made up of farmers from different regions of the province so they would have “a better chance of getting our names so far.”

He also hopes to increase voter turnout. “If nothing else,” he says, “generating some awareness for the Wheat Commission itself and this election has been successful.”

Teams tagged out

This isn’t the first time Saskatchewan farmers have seen slates of candidates. In 2011, three candidates ran together as a slate to fill three vacant positions on the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers board of directors. The following year, when five candidates ran for two vacant positions, the same three SPG board members openly endorsed two specific candidates through their own news releases and advertisements.

Complaints followed, and the SPG changed its election policies. The two endorsed candidates dropped out of the election and the three sitting directors resigned from the board.

Today, the SPG’s revised policy states that “1. No director will actively campaign in an SPG election outside of campaigning for themselves; and 2. Neither the SPG Board, nor its directors will endorse candidates in an election.”

None of the three TeamWheat candidates are SaskWheat incumbents; Faye is a sitting SaskBarley board member and, as part of TeamBarley, is endorsing and campaigning for other candidates.

This doesn’t violate SaskBarley’s policies, but it would not be allowed under SPG’s new policies. Given that most Saskatchewan farmers grow a mix of crops, its crop commodity groups can have nearly identical membership.

In the 2012 SPG election, farmer and pedigreed seed grower Vicki Dutton found herself running on the ballot alongside two candidates endorsed by sitting directors, and was disappointed to find herself campaigning under those circumstances.

“Putting your name forward as a candidate is intimidating enough,” Dutton says, “without adding a slate campaigning together.”

Dutton, now a sitting member of the SPG board — but not speaking on behalf of the board for this article — said she believes board members elected to commodity organizations need to bring their independent voices and beliefs to the table.

“These are not political parties we’re trying to run,” she says, “but complicated organizations where every individual voice is needed.”

Slates of candidates, Dutton believes, may not bring all of their independent views to the table, in which case a board risks becoming dominated by groupthink.

Governance

Saskatoon lawyer Nancy Hopkins agrees that if candidate slates become common, board governance may become an issue for farmer-funded commodity associations. One of Hopkins’ legal specializations is corporate governance, and she serves on several boards, including the board of Cameco.

Hopkins points out that the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance recommends that directors be independent of each other. “You shouldn’t have a board made up of people who tend to vote together.”

“The principle,” she says, “is that you want to elect people to the board who will bring independent judgment, their own background and skills and knowledge, and an independent point of view to every decision that’s made.”

Hopkins says the worry is that if a group of people who are working together join the board, they may continue to support each others’ views when they otherwise would not.

Dan Danielson, a sitting member of the SaskWheat board running for re-election, but not on TeamWheat, says it’s common for like-minded people to come together.

The difficulty arises, he says, “in circumstances where those like-minded people turn into factions. If there’s a hidden agenda or personality conflicts separate from the overall organizational objective, it can be a negative circumstance.”

This year, three SaskWheat incumbents are running for re-election; none are a part of TeamWheat. While the incumbent directors are not actively campaigning together, Danielson says, “the situation forces you into a bit of a slate because you’re all defending the record that you’ve had since you’ve been elected. To me, it’s an issue of degree.”

Faye isn’t worried about board conflicts or governance issues resulting from a potential election of TeamBarley members at SaskBarley. “Once you get elected, you’re representing barley growers across the province,” he says. “I vote what I feel is best for barley producers and the industry.”

Faye stresses that TeamBarley is not political, and neither is SaskBarley. “Our mandate and our regulations state that we are for research market develop and extension activities. Anything outside of that is a non-issue for us.”

“When I’ve chaired producer group meetings,” Faye says, “my first comment is, ‘Leave your political hat outside the door.'”

Eligible Saskatchewan cereal growers must return their ballots for both of these commissions by Dec. 2. Successful candidates officially begin their terms following the commissions’ annual general meetings: Jan. 11 for SaskBarley, and Jan. 13 for SaskWheat.

— Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews. Follow her at @GrainMuse on Twitter.

Candidates for the SaskWheat board:
Dan Danielson, Saskatoon, incumbent
Scott Hepworth, Assiniboia, TeamWheat
Gene Lahey, Lacadena, TeamWheat
Rick Lindsay, Arborfield
Laura Reiter, Radisson, incumbent
Bill Rosher, Kindersley, incumbent
Scott Sefton, Broadview, TeamWheat
Click here to read candidates’ biographies online.

Candidates for the SaskBarley board:
Zenneth Faye, Foam Lake, incumbent, TeamBarley
Gilbert Ferre, Zenon Park
Daryl Fransoo, Meota, TeamBarley
Cameron Goff, Hanley, incumbent
Leo Howse, Porcupine Plain
Keith Rueve, Muenster
Larry Spratt, Melfort, TeamBarley
Click here to read candidates’ biographies online.

The post Minogue: Campaigning heats up Sask. commodity board elections appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.