The Prairie Oat Growers Association may soon live up to its original mandate by including an Alberta oat commission in its fold.
POGA president Bill Wilton of Winnipeg said the Alberta Products Marketing Council is now drafting regulations for the proposed Alberta Oat Grower Commission and if approved, the new commission could be established as early as Aug. 1.
When POGA was formed in 1998 from the former Alberta Oat Growers Association, the intention was membership from all three provinces.
Because checkoffs are provincially managed, each province was expected to form a commission and collect funds that POGA would then manage.
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“We’ve been a little slow off the mark in Alberta,” said Wilton.
“The original board of directors thought they were well enough connected politically that they could simply go to the minister of agriculture and the premier and have this thing decreed. It doesn’t work that way. There’s a bureaucratic process that you have to go through.”
Enthusiasm waned for an Alberta commission, but Wilton said POGA resurrected the idea about four years ago. It held meetings, found grants for an independent survey of oat growers and agreed upon a refundable checkoff of 50 cents per tonne.
Wilton said he expects to hear from the marketing council by the end of this month about establishing the commission. An all-wheat commission also proposed in Alberta is expecting to receive word at the same time.
If decreed by the minister, both commissions would start official operations Aug. 1.
