NISKU, Alta. – A proposed prairie-wide oat checkoff could set the standard for other prairie commodity organizations.
The Prairie Oat Growers Association wants to institute individual oat checkoffs in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, but have them used collectively by a single prairie-wide commodity organization. That would eliminate the need for three sets of administration and allow more money for research.
“We have insisted from day one that Prairie Oat Growers Association’s desire is to have the new organization operate out of one office. We cannot operate out of three offices,” said Al Loyns, a Manitoba farmer and the association member behind the push for the checkoff.
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The refundable 50-cents-a-tonne checkoff would generate about $800,000 a year to be used for research, market development and promotion. The implementation of the checkoff is also the only way the five-year-old Prairie Oat Growers Association can survive.
“It probably means sustainability or not sustainability of Prairie Oat Growers Association as we know it,” said Loyns.
Association president Jack Shymko of Ituna, Sask., said governments are pushing producers to help themselves by supporting research.
Recently, Cargill and Quaker Oats put money toward oat research at the Crop Development Centre in Saskatoon. Adding producer money to that research shows the large companies that producers are willing to support their industry, said Shymko.
“If we show them that we are interested in what they are doing and we will match some of that money, they will stay here,” he said.
“If we want to maintain the profitability of growing oats here in Western Canada, we have to supply processors with the type of product they want.”
Jim Boles, an Agriculture Canada research scientist, said having a single organization without ties to a province would help the research work.
“The one positive thing that I like is that you’re looking prairie wide because a lot of the checkoffs are provincially based, and there’s a real reluctance to move a dollar across a provincial boundary.”
Each provincial government sets out rules for how a checkoff can be established. In Manitoba, farmers must vote in a referendum. In Saskatchewan, the provincial cabinet must decide if there’s support for a checkoff, and in Alberta, the government’s marketing council makes the decision.
While there has been no formal polling of farmers, Loyns said there is good support for a checkoff.
Richard Nordstrom, a Viking, Alta., farmer, said it’s not the first time producers have wanted to join commodity organizations across provincial boundaries, but it might be the first time it will be a success.
Almost 13 years ago, as president of the Western Barley Growers Association, Nordstrom lobbied government officials in Saskatchewan and Manitoba to have a single barley organization, but the Progressive Conservative governments in those provinces rejected the idea. Now the two provinces have New Democratic Party governments and they’re supporting the idea, said Nordstrom. He urged producers to go ahead with a single organization.
“Administration is extremely expensive,” said Nordstrom.
A single organization is a good use of farmers’ money, said Len Fullen, manager of projects and policy with Alberta’s Agriculture Products Marketing Council.
“We hope if you’re successful it will set a precedent for a more collaborative effort for other commodity organizations,” said Fullen.
The association plans to travel the Prairies this winter gaining farmer support and hopes to have the checkoff in place by the 2004 crop year.
