VICEROY, Sask. – A sampling of area farmers have given their approval to Saskatchewan Wheat Pool’s share offering plans via secret ballot – even though president Leroy Larsen has said delegates, not members, will cast the deciding votes.
At a meeting here last week local delegate Rod Dahlman asked the 10 farmers present to cast their votes to say how he should vote when the question comes before the 142 delegates in July.
They voted seven to three in favor of the share offering.
Dahlman said this was only the first meeting in his district, but he plans to use the same method to obtain input at each one. He is in favor of the proposal, but says if local farmers say no, he’ll vote no.
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“I think this will really succeed if people are behind it,” he said. “It will just create problems if we try to force it.”
Dahlman was disappointed only 10 of a possible 88 local members attended the meeting, and said it showed why a vote by the entire membership wouldn’t work.
Vote without information
“I feel that if everybody was informed on it they’d be generally in favor of it,” Dahlman said. “I really worry about people who haven’t seen the issues and who would vote anyway.”
Peter Shenher of Viceroy said he appreciated the chance to vote, but didn’t think a vote by the entire membership would be practical.
“I know that there are a lot of members that are inactive,” Shenher said. He suggested some would vote in favor just to withdraw their equity.
“Maybe some want to speculate and buy up shares, too,” he said. “It could go both ways.”
Farmers in attendance were concerned about continuing some form of patronage, should the share offering go ahead.
“If you haul a big load of grain in, you should receive the payment for it, not have it put in the kitty,” said Norman Neff. He said farmers must have incentive to keep hauling to pool elevators.
Erin Canham, pool treasurer, said patronage could be replaced with some type of cash or share payment.
