News of Ontario’s plan to spend $62 million to implement a five-year marketing program for cattle and sheep was not being welcomed by the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association. President Gary Jones said that western support for a national tripartite stabilization plan had evaporated in the wake of the announcement.

The process was underway to form a new general farm organization following collapse of the Manitoba Farm Bureau due to disagreement over how to pay the Crowsnest freight subsidy. In questionnaires answered by about 1,400 farmers at 25 meetings, 97 per cent said they wanted some form of organization, with 87 per cent favouring dues, of which 58 per cent favoured a compulsory checkoff. The work of a committee chaired by Bert Hall of Manitou later led to the formation of Keystone Agricultural Producers.

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We reported that in an important case, the Manitoba Court of Appeal ruled in favour of an 85-year-old Elie widow’s claim to one-third of her late husband’s 160-acre farm under the provincial Dower Act. The will had originally left the farm to two of the four children.

Rust problems in winter wheat were on the agenda at the Manitoba Agronomists conference, with predictions that resistant varieties would not be available for 10 years. Fungicides were discussed as a possibility but given the small acreage of winter wheat on the Prairies, one speaker doubted whether it would be worthwhile for chemical companies to pursue registration.

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Our front page that week had a photo of a flooded field with a cutline of “early thaws caught many by surprise.” There were no other references to weather but a story in the next issue said no flooding was expected on the Red and Assiniboine.

Elsewhere we reported on toughened regulations to control cheating the provincial beef stabilization plan. There were higher payments for yearlings, leading to “mistakes” in reporting the age of calves, as well as higher payments for steers. One producer had reported marketings of 140 per cent of his registered herd, which were all steers. “Everyone wanted to see the bull that could perform such a feat,” said the marketing manager of the Manitoba Beef Commission.

The Manitoba Farm Bureau was on its way to final dissolution — on March 8 we reported that Federated Co-operatives had withdrawn, following the earlier departure of Manitoba Pool and UGG. Interim head Bert Hall had met with Agriculture Minister Sam Uskiw to ask for support to implement a new organization with direct farmer membership, and Uskiw had asked for evidence of support.

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Mostly it has been farmers fighting the government over the Canadian Wheat Board s future, now it s farmer against farmer.

Three western Manitoba producers paid for an inserted advertisement in the Manitoba Co-operatorlast week accusing the Keystone Agriculture Producers (KAP) of not working to save the Canadian Wheat Board and suggesting KAP members request their membership fees back or complain about KAP s position.

The ad alleges KAP made an undemocratic change to its wheat board policy due to intimidation from the federal government.

But KAP president Doug Chorney says the ad is wrong.

There s no shift in policy, he said. We support the democratic approach to making changes at the wheat board.

However, Chorney added KAP has resigned itself to the board s monopoly being removed without a farmer plebiscite because that s what the federal majority government says it will do.

KAP s current position on the wheat board was arrived at democratically following the passing of three resolutions at KAP s July General Council meeting, Chorney said. Although none of the resolutions say KAP should stop advocating for a farmer plebiscite they call on KAP to develop a strategy for the continuation of non-marketing services currently provided by the board, that KAP lobby for an efficient transition and that the government cover the costs of ending board marketing, not farmers.

The purpose of the ad is to make farmers aware of KAP s position and encourage it to support the board, Brookdale farmer Andrew Dennis, one of the farmers who paid for the ad, said in an interview.

That doesn t mean we re suggesting they take their money out, but we re suggesting they kind of assess what s going on, he said. If they want to save the wheat board these guys (KAP) are actually working against them at this point.

Lyle Bremner of Neepawa and Grant Jardine of Brookdale were the other farmers who paid for the ad.

Dennis and Jardine drove trucks across the West this summer to raise money and awareness for a court challenge launched by the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board to force Ottawa to hold a farmer plebiscite on the board s future.

Some KAP members are angry theCo-operatorran the insert, and KAP s lawyer sent a letter asking it not be run again. But John Morriss, the paper s associate publisher and editorial director, said ads are not censored.

Essentially as long as the ad meets normal standards of taste and they re not libelous or slanderous we re prepared to run the ad, he said.

We don t necessarily agree with the contents of all our advertisements, or all our articles, but that s essentially what a newspaper is about. It s a public forum.

Earlier this month the National Farmers Union (NFU) issued a press release condemning KAP s decision to withdraw from the wheat board debate and invited disaffected KAP members to join the NFU.

With the NFU, you know that the CWB will always be defended, NFU Region 5 coordinator Ian Robson said.

KAP s standing policy states, in part, that KAP supports the balance offered by both an inclusion and an exclusion option (for crops under the board) providing producers have the final say.

In other words, farmers should have a vote.

KAP has members on both sides of the wheat board debate. With the spectre of the Manitoba Farm Bureau, which blew apart in the early 1980s over the equally divisive Crow Rate, some observers believe KAP was trying to avoid a similar fate.

Asked if he thought his actions have aided what some see as Ottawa s divide and conquer approach, Dennis replied: We re not doing this to be malicious. We re doing it to make sure that moving forward that these groups try and reflect the majority view.

Farm groups are important but they are of no use at all if they re not going to fight for the important things and that particular thing (wheat board) probably eclipses everything else put together.

The NFU has no qualms about trying to poach KAP members, said NFU president Terry Boehm.

This is a historical moment when people need to be steadfast, he said in an interview.

So, no, I have no misgivings.

———

There s no shift in policy. We support the democratic

approach to making changes at the wheat board.

Doug Chorney

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“Farm groups have punched way over their weight for some time.”

– jack wilkinson

When Bert Hall raised the gavel on January 15, 1985 to call the first annual meeting of Keystone Agricultural Producers to order, he recalled looking out over the smartly dressed, articulate audience and thinking, “What an impressive group of young people.”

When Ian Wishart opened the 25th KAP annual meeting last week in the same downtown Winnipeg hotel, his observation was, “We’re older than we were.”

It’s true many KAP delegates in attendance January 28, 2009 were greyer around the temples than their predecessors 25 years earlier.

But that was one of the surprisingly few differences in an organization which has weathered some of the most tumultuous events in the history of western Canadian agriculture.

A quarter-century on, KAP remains Manitoba’s major voice for farmers. That’s no mean achievement for a farm movement often splintered by a plethora of groups with divergent views. The fact that KAP still survives is itself an accomplishment, given the fractious history of farm organizations in the province.

Giving farmers a voice through a united lobby was on the minds of organizers that day in 1985 when Hall acted as provisional chair at the initial KAP gathering.

It was a daunting task. The Manitoba Farm Bureau had folded the year before after imploding over the fierce debate about how to handle the loss of the Crow Rate. Previous farm organizations had also been wracked with dissension. The history of farm groups in Manitoba was one of “bitter and debilitating warfare,” according to a 1962 report of the Manitoba Commission on Farm Organizations.

An ad hoc committee chaired by Hall and Earl Geddes took their proposal for a new general farm organization to 25 meetings throughout the province in early 1984 to sound out farmers. The vast majority of the nearly 1,400 farmers who attended endorsed proposed concepts. General council representatives and 12 delegates at each local level were elected by April 1984. KAP was ready to roll.

Jack Penner, its first president, recalls a “very substantive difference” between KAP and the MFB in structure and approach. The MFB was viewed as a top-down organization dominated by a few powerful players, such as Manitoba Pool Elevators and United Grain Growers. Both pulled out over the Crow issue in 1982 and 1983 respectively, financially crippling the organization.

KAP was deliberately structured around automatic, but refundable memberships by individuals. Commodity group members were entitled to only one vote, the same as any other delegate. District meetings raised issues which were brought to the general council for debate.

Representing commodities as well as individuals has its complications. The fact that KAP went out of its way not to take a position on the Crow dissatisfied some. Others have complained KAP’s structure prevented it from taking a strong stance on other important issues, such as trade. That was one stated reason for the departure in 2008 of the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association.

An even broader concern is whether general agricultural organizations have the same influence today given the decline in the farm population and the proliferation of commodity groups with special interests.

“I don’t think we carry the same weight,” admitted Hall. “My experience with politicians is they look at the numbers. They want to know how many people you represent.”

But recent events raise doubts about whether the farm lobby is as effective as it used to be.

A prime example was Bill 17, the NDP government’s hog moratorium legislation. KAP, together with the Manitoba Pork Council and the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce, conducted a high-level campaign against the bill. Grassroots opposition mounted. Concerned farmers and rural residents lined up before legislative committees. “Kill Bill 17” billboards blossomed, full-page advertisements appeared in newspapers and callers jammed open-line shows. It had no effect. Bill 17 passed without amendment.

It was the first case in memory of government ignoring a farm protest rally.

But Ian Wishart says Bill 17 only reflected changing demographics which necessitate a shift in KAP’s lobbying strategy.

“Bill 17 was a lesson to us all,” said Wishart, who was returned to a second one-year term as president during last week’s meeting. “We’re a victim of the urban-rural gap and the nature of our lobbying has to change.”

Wishart said KAP’s lobbying efforts 25 years ago centred on nuts-and-bolts issues such as obtaining farm supplies. Those issues are still there but KAP today also focuses on matters of general public concern. Examples include human resources (e. g., workers’ compensation), nutrient management, food safety and the environment.

Earl Geddes, who followed Penner as president, said the need for a strong farmer voice hasn’t changed but the target audience is different.

“The target you’re lobbying may no longer be the politician or the bureaucrat. It may not be the minister or the deputy minister. It may be the leader of an environmental group,” said Geddes. “Go to where the power is.”

Jack Wilkinson, a farm lobby veteran, also doesn’t believe farm organizations’ days are done, even though farmers today make up only two per cent of Canada’s population.

“Numbers are not the issue,” said Wilkinson, a former president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and the International Federation of Agricultural Producers. “Farm groups have punched way over their weight for some time.” ron@fbcpublishing.com

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“What can I do to leave a legacy to Western Canadian agriculture? This is it.”

– Ed Rempel

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz says the federal government won’t consider any action on a request to refund railway overpayments to farmers until a court case in concluded.

“The money has been put in a trust while the railways appeal the CTA decision,” Ritz said in an interview. “The railways took a gamble in continuing to charge high rates toward the end of the last crop year.”

Even if the government agreed the money should go to farmers, an idea to which Ritz seemed lukewarm, it would require amendments to the Western Grain Transportation Act, a process that could easily take a year or two.

The CTA in late December ruled CN exceeded the cap by $25.9 million and CP went over by $33.8 million. The federal regulator also fined CN and CP by $3.9 million and $5 million respectively. Under federal law, the overpayments and fines are to go to the Western Grain Research Fund.

Farm groups are divided over how best to allocate the funds with Keystone Agricultural Producers becoming the latest group to weigh into the debate.

The issue figured prominently at KAP’s annual meeting – 25 years after its predecessor, the Manitoba Farm Bureau, collapsed under the weight of another debate over compensating producers directly or indirectly.

Delegates last week passed a resolution in favour of paying the WGRF after a lengthy and sometimes intense debate.

Several KAP delegates warned some producers feel strongly the money is theirs and they should have it.

“There are farmers that want this money back,” said Wilfred Harder of Lowe Farm.

But others said giving the money to the WGRF would reap long-term benefits through more research.

“What can I do to leave a legacy to Western Canadian agriculture? This is it,” said Ed Rempel.

Added David Rolfe, KAP past-president: “I don’t think we’d ever get a better investment for being overcharged by the railways.”

However, Don Dewar, another former KAP president , warned the money might not be available for up to five years, now that the issue is before the courts.

The meeting defeated an attempted amendment to have the overcharges paid to producers and the penalties to the WGRF.

The Canadian Wheat Board, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association and the Western Grain Elevator Association want the money returned to producers.

CWB CEO Ian White says the overpayments amount to thousands of dollars for larger farms. “We are asking that the federal government to find a way to channel the money back to producers.” He says the magnitude of the overpayment merits an exemption from the WGRF funding requirement. Farmers saw grain freight rates rise by eight per cent cent during the 2008 calendar year.

Grain Growers of Canada has asked the WGRF to tell farmers what it could achieve with the $68 million.

President Doug Robertson said $68 million invested at three per cent would yield about $2 million a year in perpetuity. With 50 million seeded acres, even if yields were increased by half a bushel an acre that would pay farmers their money back, each and every year for a one-time investment, he said.

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“It was not obvious that Keystone would be successful,” he told farmers and dignitaries gathered for the 25th annual Keystone Agricultural Producers banquet. “But there was a group of people that decided to deal with whatever challenges there were and said that they would see this out.”

He was referring to what – in hindsight – proved to be a ridiculously pointless debate over paying the Crow Rate directly to farmers or to the railways. Disagreements became personal, to the point where the organizations that made up the Manitoba Farm Bureau walked out of the room, taking their financial support with them.

Keystone was formed after consultations with farmers determined a general farm policy organization needed to be financed by individual memberships, and its policies determined by individual votes.

“This was not a small thing,” Wilkinson said in reference to Bert Hall, who chaired a committee of farmers criss-crossing the province in the early 1980s to gauge support for a general farm policy organization that would be owned and controlled by grassroots farmers.

“Life does not unfold magically. There are people who play a role in every time period who make a difference.”

Wilkinson credits KAP with being a “phenomenal influence” on national farm policy, both in the quantity of resolutions it sends to the Canadian Federation of Agriculture meetings and the quality of the policies it promotes.

It was KAP members who came up with the Gross Revenue Insurance (GRIP) and Net Income Stabilization (NISA) plans – arguably two of the most successful attempts to provide farmers with the business risk management tools they seek.

More recently, it was KAP that attempted to bridge the gap between farmers’ financial needs and society’s increasing desire to preserve natural capital with the Alternative Land Use Services plan that is now in a pilot stage across Canada.

Besides developing policy, KAP members have debated, sometimes vociferously, how best to lobby on farmers’ behalf when confronting a multitude of challenges ranging from financial distress, to increasing regulatory pressures to preserving rural infrastructure.

And they are all volunteers, taking time away from their day-today business pursuits to gather and discuss. Sure there’s a social component to this. More than a couple of people at last week’s banquet noted a few days away from the farm to hang out with mostly pleasant people in a comfortable hotel this time of year is almost like a holiday.

But the rewards are few and the frustrations are many, not the least of which are farmers who refuse to join and who criticize the organization’s very move.

But there are doers and there are doubters in every community.

And as you looked around the room at the folks who came to this organization’s anniversary celebrations, the faces you saw were some of the same you will see at municipal council conventions, involved in co-operative organizations both past and present, regional health authorities and community-building groups of all shapes and sizes across the province.

Their collective wisdom and perseverance has served rural Manitoba well.

Savings also good for the economy

The pollsters are perplexed. The big spending federal budget released last week has apparently met with a ho-hum response from the public. Perhaps deep down inside people see the folly of a strategy that is more about buying votes than addressing the economic crisis.

“Consumers have no savings and debt up to their ears, but their political masters want them to go out and dig themselves in deeper,” noted Harry Koza, a financial markets fellow with the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies in a recent column. “The solution to the debt bubble is more debt. Yeah, borrowing and spending our way to prosperity – that’ll work.”

“One of the reasons we are in this financial mess in the first place is because we’ve been pumping stimulus into our economies for years, to the point where they are more stimulated than a Grade 3 class on Ritalin,” Koza says.

Governments appear convinced that increased consumerism – creating a nation of borrowers – is the only way to support the economy. Yet there are clear signs from the environment and our declining base of non-renewable resources that rampant consumerism on a global scale can’t be sustained.

Now is the time to consider how to support the economy without buying more stuff. As Koza points out, savings are also an investment in the economy. In order to have borrowers, we must also have savers. laura@fbcpublishing.com

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