Most Manitoba corn growers have learned to accept that they will occasionally lose a crop to a cold summer as they did last year.
Such are the risks of farming.
But many growers feel a sense of annoyance over what they see as more controllable, human-caused factors. Corn producers say this year they will again have to face the pesticide discrimination that has bedeviled them for years.
“We’re just spinning our wheels,” said frustrated Steinbach, Man., farm input dealer Marc Hutlet in an interview during the Manitoba Corn Growers Association’s corn school on Feb. 18.
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“It puts the producers, my customers, at a disadvantage because these other producers have access to the new technology in killing the weeds.”
The other producers are corn growers in Ontario and just south of the U.S. border, in North Dakota, within an hour’s drive of most of the Manitoba corn belt. Producers in those areas can use the most recently developed pesticides as soon as they are registered for general use.
But growers in Manitoba’s Red River valley, even though they farm in similar conditions as the Ontario and North Dakota growers, face extra hurdles in getting access to the new chemicals, hurdles that add years to the wait for the cutting edge pesticides.
The Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which oversees pesticide approvals, has said it wants to begin registering chemicals for eco-regions so that this problem will not occur. Most of Manitoba’s corn belt lies within the same eco-region as southern Ontario and North Dakota.
But this has not been happening, so when farmers want to use a pesticide for corn in Manitoba, they need to apply for “minor use” permission.
That process is strangling access, said Theresa Bergsma, secretary manager of the Manitoba Corn Growers Association.
“They always seem to think they need more data Ñ more Manitoba specific data,” said Bergsma in an interview after a session in which many farmers expressed frustration with the present situation.
“It always puts us two years, if not three years, behind,” said Bergsma.
The eco-regions have been defined for years now, Bergsma said, but regulators have not begun to use them for approvals.
“We’ve heard this story, that it’s just around the corner, for 11 years now,” said Bergsma. Many PMRA staff are helpful, she said, but the system needs to be changed.
Manitoba corn growers are hoping the herbicide Option can be registered for this summer. It was approved in the fall of 2004 for Ontario. It is being used by North Dakota growers.
Bergsma said she hopes Option will receive speedy registration for Manitoba, but said there is a big queue of other herbicides and tank mixes that are less likely to make it through the system this year.
Farmers are also waiting for approval of Converge, Battalion, Accent and Total.
The PMRA has said it is planning to increase its staff that oversees minor-use chemicals in Manitoba, which is a good thing, Bergsma said. And the MCGA plans to spend more time on minor-use applications and responses.
But Bergsma said corn growers need the eco-region zones to come into effect so Manitoba growers can be fairly treated.
Hutlet, a Pioneer Hi-Bred seed dealer, will be happy when that happens because it should end a black market for chemicals from North Dakota.
“It’s not a big secret that there’s a lot of underground stuff going on,” said Hutlet. “(Farmers) are using a lot of the stuff already, and it’s working.”
