Alberta Wheat Pool members will receive something extra in their Christmas stockings this year.
Cash dividends totaling $3.4 million will be in the mail due to the new member equity plan introduced last year. This is the first time in many years farmers have received cash payouts, said pool president Alex Graham.
The biggest cheque to an individual is $4,000, Graham said during the opening day of the pool’s annual meeting in Calgary Nov. 25.
In total, farmer-members receive $19.8 million in patronage refunds based on the amount of business farmers did with the pool in the last crop year.
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Of that money, the co-operative will pay a 15 percent withholding tax of about $3 million. The remainder, $13.4 million, is assigned as member equity to be paid out over time.
Money from that dividend goes into revolving accounts as preferred B shares starting in 1998.
Graham said these shares can be cashed in on demand or kept as investments with quarterly interest payments.
Pool A shares are available to members and employees. They can be designated as a registered retirement plan or transferred to family members.
This year the pool earned $28.2 million before taxes. Projected earnings for the next fiscal year are $28.7 million.
While this is a substantial improvement over 1995, chief executive officer Gordon Cummings said these earnings are still not enough.
“We need to generate average earnings in the neighborhood of $30 million to achieve a desired return,” he told pool delegates. “One year does not an average make.”
Even while large sections of cropland in the Peace River district in northwestern Alberta and areas north of Edmonton were left unharvested, Cummings and Graham don’t feel the delayed harvest will affect core earnings.
“We’re more concerned about the well-being of individual farmers rather than the overall effects this will have on Alberta Pool,” Graham told reporters.
