With a new crop about to be planted, some farmers are ready for what
they think will be a rewarding niche market.
The Pesticide Free Production Farmers Co-op Ltd. is trying to organize
growers and buyers of untreated grain so that some sales can occur this
year.
Brenda Tjaden Lepp, the co-op’s newly appointed manager, said she
thinks lots of buyers worldwide will want to eat grain grown without
the use of pesticides.
“I’m not that concerned about maxxing out this market,” said Tjaden
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Lepp.
“There’s a huge market for wheat. There’s a huge market for flax.
There’s a huge market for oats. We’re just going for a really small
portion of that.”
Pesticide free production, or PFP, is the copyrighted label for a
system in which crops are grown in soils that have no commercially
active pesticide residues and that are not treated with pesticides
between emergence and harvest. Only non-genetically modified seeds are
grown.
This is different from the much tougher standards that are applied to
crops that are certified organic, which generally must be grown in
soils that have not had any chemical applications or chemical
fertilizers for three years.
Crops grown in the PFP system can be produced on land that had a
pre-seeding burnoff or a fall treatment, so long as there are no
residues when the crop emerges.
Promoters of the system say it reduces a farmer’s costs, cuts his
financial exposure by limiting inputs, and provides an opening to a
possibly lucrative market.
Two farmers are already marketing products with the PFP label, Tjaden
Lepp said. A Manitoba farmer is selling PFP sunflower seeds and a
Saskatchewan grower is selling PFP oats.
But Tjaden Lepp expects most product marketing to occur after the new
crop comes in, since many farmers are just getting into this system.
Her goals this summer will be to promote the PFP logo to buyers and
growers, find markets for the products, figure out a certification
system and co-ordinate the growers.
The co-op is headed by farmers. Tjaden Lepp said she expects it to stay
that way.
“We’re not playing the game of being a big elevator company,” she said.
“This is value-added, on-farm niche marketing.”
