The board of directors of Saskatchewan Agrivision has passed a resolution to dissolve the organization immediately due to a lack of funding.
“It’s pretty simple. We just couldn’t keep the core operation going,” said Agrivision president Red Williams.
Governments and corporations regularly contributed to specific projects over the years but refused to provide the $300,000 in annual core funding required to run the operation. That day-to-day funding came from “altruistic” private investors.
“Those people were beginning to drop off. You get fatigue after so many years,” he said.
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Officers tried to salvage the organization by presenting a six-month transition plan to the board of directors at the April 22 annual general meeting. But the plan, which called for operating on a streamlined budget of $20,000 per month until more sustainable funding could be secured, was rejected.
Williams said it’s a sad day because a lot of time and effort has gone into the organization since it was formed in June 1999, with a mandate to make transformational changes in agriculture.
“What we were trying to do is to get above the normal lobbying and clashes that occur,” he said.
News of Agrivision’s demise didn’t come as a surprise to Glenn Blakley, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan. He said the think-tank was good at thinking outside the box but didn’t excel when it came to practical realities.
“At the end of the day it was pretty hard to see any productivity coming out of it,” he said.
“As good as it is to have dialogue and look at opportunities, somewhere along the way there has to be some connection to putting the product on the ground. That was one of the challenges that Agrivision had right from the start.”
Williams disagreed with that view.
“I think we’ve had an impact that many organizations would envy,” he said.
He is particularly proud of the report Water Wealth: A Fifty Year Water Development Plan for Saskatchewan, a paper that he said encouraged billions of dollars of government investment in building dams and diverting rivers to trigger increased irrigation and food production.
Another favourite was the Best Practices of Leading Farmers report, which Williams said generated significant interest from the financial community.
Agrivision is in the process of farming out or prematurely wrapping up its existing projects. Williams is attempting to establish an independent board of directors to continue with the idea of establishing an inland port in Saskatchewan and he hopes former executive director Al Scholz will be able to complete a book on how to address narrowing margins in the grain sector.
What bothers him are the ideas left on the table, such as establishing a place for consensus building in the fractured farm lobby or following Alberta’s lead by developing a branding strategy for Saskatchewan beef.
That is his one and only lament.
“It has been a good run. We don’t look back with any regrets at all,” said Williams.
