It wasn’t exactly business as usual, but there was business being done
at Newfield Seeds last week.
A May 14 fire destroyed the well-known Nipawin, Sask., company’s $4
million seed cleaning plant, along with an estimated $2 million
inventory of alfalfa and grass seed in an adjacent warehouse.
But in the days immediately following the fire, the company continued
shipping product from two other undamaged warehouses and carrying on
its retail, distribution and production activities as best it could
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during this busy time of year.
“We’re in a crisis management,” said managing director John Doege.
“Everyone is still employed, although no one is doing what they were
doing May 13.”
The fire, which is believed to have broken out in the seed cleaning
plant’s electrical room, quickly spread to a nearby forest and forced
the evacuation of two seniors’ housing complexes.
Doege said May 17 that while no formal decision had been made on the
future of the plant by Newfield’s Swedish owners, he’s optimistic it
will be rebuilt.
“From all the communication we’ve had from our shareholders, there is
no indication that they’re backing away from reconstruction,” he said.
Larry Lee, the provincial government’s extension agrologist in Nipawin,
said everyone in the area hopes that’s the case.
The company is a crucial fixture, he said, not only for the jobs and
business activity it provides but also for its impact on the local farm
economy.
“It’s certainly been a big asset for the farmers in the area,” said
Lee. “It gives them a good option for another crop they can look at
with the forage seed production.”
The Nipawin area is home to a significant percentage of the total
forage seed production in the province and that’s due in large part to
the presence of Newfield, he said.
The company contracts 5,000 to 8,000 acres of forage seed production
annually and manages more than 25,000 acres of forage seed contracts,
primarily pedigreed seed.
Nipawin mayor Glen Day said Newfield is “a huge business” in the town
of 5,000, with 70 full time employees and a payroll of more than $2
million. He is optimistic the plant will be rebuilt.
Newfield, which was founded by businessperson H. G. Neufeld in 1947,
was purchased in 1991 by Svalof Weibull AB of Sweden, one of Europe’s
largest plant breeding and seed companies.
Svalof Weibull is owned 60 percent by the Swedish Farmers Supply and
Crop Marketing Association and 40 percent by BASF.
In 1996, Svalof Weinbull acquired Wheat City Seeds of Brandon and
Riding Valley Agro of Laurier, Man., then two years later amalgamated
them, along with Priority Lab, into one company known as Newfield Seeds
Co. Ltd. The retail division of Newfield is ProMark Seed of Brandon.
By coincidence, the week before the fire the Canadian Grain Commission
posted on its website a notice that Newfield’s grain dealer’s licence
had expired as of April 30 and was not being renewed.
Doege said that licence was unrelated to the company’s seed business.
Rather, it reflected a strategic decision taken by Newfield about three
years ago to get out of the business of buying and selling commodities
such as peas, lentils and canaryseed.
