Glencore Agriculture’s Prairie grain arm said Thursday it will build a new high-throughput in the municipality of Rosser, Man., near the northwest corner of Winnipeg’s Perimeter Highway.

The new site, connecting to Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) track, will have storage capacity for 34,000 tonnes of grain and will have a loop track system to load up to 134 rail cars, the company said.

Work on the new facility will start “immediately” and is expected to be complete in autumn next year, Viterra said.

The current Rosser elevator was built in the late 1980s by Manitoba Pool Elevators, whose assets were part of the merger creating Viterra in 2007. The Canadian Grain Commission puts the elevator’s capacity today at 6,760 tonnes.

Regina-based Viterra didn’t say in Thursday’s release what will happen to the current Rosser elevator and a company representative wasn’t immediately available for comment.

“By revitalizing our presence in this area through a modern state-of-the-art facility, we will provide customers with convenient access to the superior service, marketing opportunities and advice that makes us an industry leader,” Kyle Jeworski, Viterra’s CEO for North America, said in the company’s release.

“We commend Viterra for the continuous and substantial investments it has been making to enhance its asset network, including its new elevator at Rosser,” Joan Hardy, CP’s vice-president of sales and marketing for grain and fertilizers, said in the same release. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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But on the same page was a story quoting a Cargill analyst forecasting cash corn prices at between $3.15 and $3.40 per bushel. At the beginning of this month the average Iowa cash corn price was $3.10. That was based on a seven-billion-bushel corn crop. Last year’s was 14.6 billion bushels.

That month the wheat board had released lower initial payments for the new crop year, with 1 CWRS at $4.75 and feed barley at $2.70 per bushel, and elevators were congested as farmers rushed to deliver before the end of the crop year. They needed to visit the elevator if they wanted to deliver in the new crop year — another postal strike was on that month and permit book applications (and Co-operators) were only available at the elevator.

Former Soviet Union countries are now Canada’s biggest export competitor, but that month the wheat board announced a Soviet sale of 1.4 million tonnes of wheat and 910,000 tonnes of barley to be delivered from August through October. However, delivery was threatened by prospects of a potential strike at Thunder Bay, where labour-management negotiations with terminal operators had broken off July 16.

The crop report for July 23 said Manitoba crops were maturing well, but there was concern over leaf rust on some wheat varieties. It was hoped that Columbus and Benito, two new varieties with better resistance, would be available for 1982.

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As today, grain transportation was in the news that month. Thunder Bay was set for an early opening, but a Cargill trader expressed concern about a shortage of lake vessels for the coming season. At a meeting in Winnipeg, CN president Ron Lawless welcomed the decision by the three Prairie Pools to support a change in the Crow rate for the railways, but warned that more efficiencies were needed in the system and that more hopper cars were not the only answer. However, more hoppers were on the way — late in 1979 the wheat board had made the controversial decision to buy 2,000 hoppers with producers’ money, and our March 13 issue featured a photo of Premier Sterling Lyon and Agriculture Minister Jim Downey standing on one of the 400 cars that the province had leased for the grain fleet.

In the same issue Downey announced that orders-in-council had been passed to allow Manitoba chicken producers full participation in the national marketing agency. However, producers were concerned about overproduction and low prices — the Manitoba chicken producers’ annual meeting heard that Canadian stocks in storage had risen from 29.1 million pounds in 1979 to a “disastrous” 43.1 million pounds in 1980.

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Payette’s business is elevator repair and maintenance, making him the guy farmers who now own these sites regularly call when a roof, siding or cribbing needs work, or a foundation is iffy.

“We’ve got 103 that we maintain now and the list is still climbing,” said Payette, in an interview at his Roseisle home on a rare day off between his frequent jaunts to job sites throughout Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

“Every year we seem to pick up an elevator or so.”

They’re a mix of former Manitoba Pool Elevators and United Grain Growers sites, plus a few across the border into Saskatchewan. Most are privately owned and used as storage. Many are on abandoned railway lines.

“We do a few for grain companies such as Paterson and Delmar Commodities as well,” adds Payette.

Payette’s business evolved out of a long career that spanned nearly a quarter-century with Manitoba Pool Elevators, doing the same repair and maintenance work. In 2004 he departed what by then was Agricore United, hung out his own shingle and kept right on with the job.

“Basically I’m doing it all over again but on my own,” he says.

Job sites

It’s no small undertaking maintaining a roster of massive aging Prairie giants found in all corners of rural Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The farthest west he’s gone out for a job is Milk River, Alberta, where he cut out walls and replaced lumber on a former Parrish & Heimbecker.

No two jobs are the same. Sometimes it takes a few days. Other times he and his crew of two can be at it for several weeks.

They might need to repair aluminum exteriors, referred to as Manitoba siding. He’s crawled underneath elevators to assess to what extent of rot and decay is taking its toll. He’s jacked up many annexes. They do a lot of cribbing, or cutting out walls to replace the lumber, says Payette. And they’ve had a bird’s eye view from the top, stripping off old cedar shingles to put on new metal roofs. Much of their work is preventive maintenance, including checking to make sure augers and conveyors and other interior equipment is in good working order.

“We’ll go in once or maybe twice a year and check everything,” he said.

Landmarks

On a wall at home Payette has a large map dating back to August 1, 1953. It shows 290 country elevators in operation by MPE at that point.

During his own time working with the company — he started in 1979 — many rail lines servicing those sites were abandoned and elevators on them came down.

Payette says he certainly appreciates the site of a country elevator, but admits he doesn’t think that much about how what he does helps keep up what have become some of the last remaining of these iconic buildings.

“They’re marvellous landmarks,” he said. “But the important part for me is keeping these elevators maintained,” he said. Most who own them also tend to view them in a practical light. “They’re convenient storage,” he said. But some also value the building for its role in a community the farm family may have long been part of, he adds.

“A lot of them want to keep them up as long as they can,” he said, “but it’s often just for the fact it’s their storage. It’s very expensive to replace that elevator with steel bins.”

One elevator stands out among others for him, personally.

It’s the Harte elevator. His business card bears its image. It’s a former Manitoba Pool elevator built between 1973 and 1974 northwest of Carberry, and an early example of the composite type of elevator, where the elevator and annex were built as one solid crib. It’s also one of the first elevators whose scale could operate in imperial and metric.

“To me it’s the nicest-looking elevator out there,” he said. “And they maintain it very well.”

Future

But no building lasts forever. Many of these sites are nearing 80 years old, notes Payette. And as farms change hands in the future, different owners may have other plans for the buildings.

“I’d say they’ve got 20 to 30 years left in them, although some of them could go for another 40 years or so, if they’re well maintained,” said Payette.

Under his watch, they will be. He loves a job that helps farmers keep country elevators doing theirs.

“It’s filthy work,” he says with a hearty laugh. “It’s very dirty work. But I just love that kind of work. Every day is a different challenge.”

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Our Feb. 14 issue carried part five of a summary of the Rapeseed ’80 home study course, in which 2,500 producers were participating. Zero tillage was said to be “an interesting concept.”

“While there’s practically no preparation of the seedbed, a farmer needs lots of patience with it. He may have to wait two weeks after the neighbours start to seed before he can put in a zero-till crop.”

Certified seed, already used by most growers, was recommended. “With the increasing area in rapeseed, it’s likely the seed price will continue to increase slowly,” the summary said.

“Crop rotation has been necessary to prevent mustard from building up. If breeding of a new variety solves the mustard problem, rape could be planted continuously… this would cut the weeds down to a point where very little chemical would be needed.”

The U.S. had imposed an embargo on grain sales to the Soviet Union following its invasion of Afghanistan, cutting supplies by 17 million tonnes. Canada had also agreed to limit sales, but Reuters reported that Italian traders were holding Canadian barley cargoes purchased before the embargo, and they could be sold at a profit of up to $2.75 a bushel.

The short-lived Joe Clark Conservative government had just approved $42.5 million for infrastructure for the new terminal at Prince Rupert.

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Meanwhile, several farm organization representatives were on their way to Ottawa to lobby for even more assistance, and asking that the $700 million already promised be paid out sooner.

The tight income situation was being reflected in land prices. FCC reported that land prices over the past year had fallen 11.8 per cent in Saskatchewan, 2.3 per cent in Manitoba and 5.8 per cent in Alberta.

Signs of trouble between the Prairie Pools were beginning to appear, with Manitoba Pool delegates questioning Saskatchewan Pool’s decision to acquire two large Manitoba elevators to be operated as AgPro Grain.

XCAN, the export arm of the three Pools, was also in the news. Its former chief trader was sentenced to three years in prison for using the company to bankroll his own trading activities. His partner in the scheme received 2-1/2 years.

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A joint article by Manitoba Agriculture, Manitoba Crop Insurance and the Canada-Manitoba Farm Business Management Council in that issue had maps illustrating the use of Groups 1, 2 and 3 herbicides by township in Manitoba. The article warned against the development of resistance, which had already reached high levels for some weeds.

A story that week welcomed recent rains overall, but they were excessive in some areas, with seven inches reported at Vita July 1 and 2.

North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan was again protesting Canadian wheat imports. In a news conference, he was accompanied by a North Dakota State University economist who said that the imports had cost North Dakota producers $222 million over the previous three years.

There was good news for cattle producers that week — prices had recovered over the previous 12 months after hitting an 11-year low in April 1996.

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The company on Thursday announced its “recent purchase” of the Tri-Field Farms elevator at Netley, about 25 km north of Selkirk at the south end of Lake Winnipeg.

Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed in the company’s release and a Scoular spokesperson in Omaha wasn’t immediately available for comment Thursday afternoon.

The elevator was built by Manitoba Pool Elevators, which later merged with Alberta Pool into Agricore.

Agricore in turn sold the Netley site in 2000, ahead of its merger with UGG in 2001 as Agricore United. At the time of its sale, the elevator had 2,040 tonnes of grain storage capacity and has had bin space added since then.

Its rail access comes via the Lake Line Railroad, a 50-km farmer-owned shortline of former Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) track running from Gimli south through Netley to Selkirk, where it connects with CP’s track running south to the main line at Winnipeg.

Jeff Vipond, Scoular’s senior Canadian marketing manager in Calgary, said the company is “no stranger to the Netley area” as its Calgary commodity merchandisers have “worked closely” with Tri-Field owner Randy Penner for the past three years.

Scoular, since then, has made “significant investments in the facility to improve the marketability of locally produced grains and oilseeds,” the company said in its release.

Penner and Tri-Field staff will continue to work at the facility as Scoular employees, the company said.

Local growers, Scoular said, will “continue to work with local staff to market their rye, wheat, soybeans, corn and special crops, while gaining the advantage of access to Scoular’s expansive commodity marketing network.”

Privately-held Scoular’s Prairie operations expanded significantly last year when it bought the special crops division of Winnipeg commodity firm Legumex Walker.

“Scoular’s commodity marketing expertise, combined with its people’s relationships with distillers, flour millers, exporters, and railroads, brings value to this operation and the local growers it serves,” Penner said in the same release.

Scoular, Vipond said, has been “actively seeking opportunities to invest in assets and to expand our network in Canada to better serve our customers. We’re impressed with the operation that Randy has established and we’re looking forward to expanding on what he started.” — AGCanada.com Network

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The Manitoba Historical Society (MHS) is gathering information about all elevators that ever stood in Manitoba, regardless of their present status. Collaborating with the Manitoba Co-operator it is supplying these images of a grain elevator each week in hopes readers will be able to tell the society more about it, or any other elevator they know of.

MHS Gordon Goldsborough webmaster and Journal editor has developed a website to post your replies to a series of questions about elevators. The MHS is interested in all grain elevators that have served the farm community.

Your contributions will help gather historical information such as present status of elevators, names of companies, owners and agents, rail lines, year elevators were built — and dates when they were torn down (if applicable).

There is room on the website to post personal recollections and stories related to grain elevators. The MHS presently also has only a partial list of all elevators that have been demolished. You can help by updating that list if you know of one not included on that list.

Your contributions are greatly appreciated and will help the MHS develop a comprehensive, searchable database to preserve the farm community’s collective knowledge of what was once a vast network of grain elevators across Manitoba.

Please contribute to the This Old Grain Elevator website here. You will receive a response, by email or phone call, confirming that your submission was received.

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The summer of 1997 was hot and dry across the Prairies — in August StatsCan estimated wheat production at 22 million tonnes, down 6.8 million from 1996. Disease was also a factor — leaf rust infestation was reported to be the worst in six years.

We reported that the Rogers Sugar plant in Winnipeg was to shut down Sept. 30, ending 57 years of sugar beet processing in Manitoba.

We reported that as of the close of the crop year, Manitoba Pool expected a strong profit, and that was confirmed in October when it reported a profit of $28.13 million, shattering the previous record of $19.2 million in 1979-80. Manitoba Pool merged with Alberta Pool the following year to become Agricore, which in turn merged with United Grain Growers in 2001.

Manitoba Pool had started as a group of locally owned elevator associations, but most were bought out by head office in the 1960s. However, one of the few holdouts was the Sperling association, and we reported that it had reached a new management agreement with N.M. Paterson. The elevator was later sold to Delmar Commodities, which operated it for several years. It was torn down this summer.

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