FISHER BRANCH, Man. – Far from dominating the landscape, the new Manitoba Pool elevator serving this community is, in many ways, symbolic of the whole organization.
The unassuming collection of metal bins, elevation legs and a concrete scale is streamlined and less capital intensive than traditional elevators.
The first off-track facility in Manitoba may reflect a new image for the grain co-operative.
Battle-scarred from two decades of financial and political turbulence, Manitoba Pool has emerged knowing what it doesn’t want to be. It doesn’t want to be highly financed with debt capital.
Read Also
Ag in Motion speaker highlights need for biosecurity on cattle operations
Ag in Motion highlights need for biosecurity on cattle farms. Government of Saskatchewan provides checklist on what you can do to make your cattle operation more biosecure.
Since the 1970s, Manitoba Pool has endured huge losses within its meat packing, fertilizer, oil and oilseed crushing subsidiaries. It led to Manitoba Pool’s only money-losing year in 1989.
“Those ‘other charges’ were a significant burden to (the pool), particularly when you look at our size relative to the other two pools, (Saskatchewan and Alberta).” said chief executive officer Greg Arason.
He added Manitoba Pool doesn’t want to give up its provincial identity and local control in favor of a larger organization.
In 1989, Manitoba members rejected a bid to amalgamate the three Prairie Pools, and they have so far shunned the idea of attracting public investment to the organization.
It is a pragmatic approach to expansion, less aggressive and more directly tied to the company’s core operation of grain gathering.
Look to the future
“I think there’s been a fundamental shift in thinking,” said Arason.
In the past, “I would say our strategy was to own and control the new businesses that we were getting into. We really see the future now as being more one of strategic alliances.”
Officials say lack of complete control over a new venture, inherent in that strategy, is more than offset by reduced risk and the expertise new partners can offer.
The partnership forged by Manitoba Pool and the Saskatche-wan Wheat Pool with the Italian multinational, Ferruzzi, is credited with rescuing the co-operative’s oilseed crushing business from its crippling debt load.
Manitoba Pool is expanding its equity position in Can-Oat Milling Ltd. in Portage la Prairie, but its 16 percent will not buy domination of the firm.
“I think on a small equity basis we can have influence and contribute to the success of that joint venture with our ability to source raw product,” said Manitoba Pool president Charlie Swanson.
“The bottom line is to generate additional markets and hopefully additional returns for the product that our members produce.”
Swanson believes that despite the decision to avoid outright amalgamation, the pools will pursue more joint ventures in the future.
Manitoba now co-operates with one or both its sister pools in export marketing, oilseed crushing, fertilizer manufacturing and distribution, and most recently livestock marketing.
Swanson said it’s time, for example, to consider a joint effort by the two newspapers currently owned by Manitoba Pool and Sask-atchewan Wheat Pool.
“Some day down the road, …Êwe may be down to where there’s only the country elevator divisions that are stand-alone,” he said.
Philosophically, this co-operative has become more focused on its survival as a grain company, gradually moving away from its history of giving voice to the rural lobby.
Less than a decade ago, resolutions debated at the annual meeting included everything from rural telephone service to international grain policy.
Resolutions changing
Now, resolutions tend to be limited to the operations of the company and the policy environment that directly affects it.
Even the company’s mission statement, developed three years ago, refers to its farmer members as customers and defines MPE as “an agricultural business organization.”
But it’s a change due in large part to pressure from its farmer members.
“A young farmer will be more impressed with how we expand opportunities for him or her, the farmer, than what we might be saying in the paper or the media,” said Brian Saunderson, a board member from Souris.
And it’s not unusual for a maturing co-operative to become inwardly focussed, said Brett Fairbairn, a University of Saskatchewan historian who studies co-operatives.
“They become more and more interested in their own survival,” #Fairbairn said.
“It’s entirely natural. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s not even a degeneration – it happens.”
