opinion
Last week’s newspaper reported how the Western Grains Research Foundation’s only employee was being overwhelmed by letters from farmers seeking rebates on the new grain research checkoff.
It appears about 13,000 farmers (10 percent of growers) will claim rebates before the Feb. 28 cutoff date. That’s a regrettably high percentage for a program that has the potential to be of major long-term benefit to all grain farmers.
One factor alienating some farmers was undeniably the timing of the first checkoffs. To save administrative costs, the money is deducted from wheat board final payments.
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federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
Since legislation authorizing the deductions was only implemented in December, there was no time to give producers a chance to opt out before the next final payment.
Thus they received statements showing the deductions already made, with a note that they have until Feb. 28 to ask for the money back.
Next year, the timing should be more palatable – farmers will be able to specify by Nov. 1, before the final payment, if they don’t want the deduction made. There will also be time for farm organizations to better inform their members about the foundation’s work.
One thing worth emphasizing to farmers is that the foundation is effectively farmer-controlled.
The foundation was set up with government money ($9 million left over from the old Prairie Farm Assistance Act), but it is controlled by 13 directors representing farmer organizations.
The groups include all three pools, the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, National Farmers Union, Western Barley Growers Association, Unifarm, Keystone, United Grain Growers, plus the Canola Growers, Seed Growers, Flax Growers and Oat Producers associations.
If such a politically diverse collection of farmer-controlled organizations can agree on something, it’s probably an extremely worthwhile project.
The checkoff could bring in $4.8 million a year, or about $37 for each of the 130,000 producers affected.
On average, that’s not a heavy load, but in total it could provide a significant amount of money to finance plant breeding research for both wheat and barley. Farmers need continually improving varieties to help them cope with ever-increasing production costs and to help them provide internationally competitive products.
It would be nice to leave all such research to government, but governments simply aren’t prepared to spend as much on research as they once did.
Plant breeding research is a good investment for farmers. Hopefully, support for the checkoff will grow over the next eight months.
