Agricore United’s new membership structure will set it apart from its
competitors in the grain handling and farm supply business, says an
official with the Winnipeg grain company.
Maurice Lemay, a member of AU’s board of directors and chair of the
committee that designed the new structure, said it will make AU one of
the few grain industry organizations with grassroots farmer
representation from all four western provinces.
“I think that makes for a little more broad representation,” he said in
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Competitors with democratic structures, such as United Farmers of
Alberta and Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, are either restricted to or
heavily focused on one province. Others, like Cargill Ltd. or Pioneer
Grain, have no membership structure.
By contrast, the 105 member advisory groups being set up by Agricore
United will be evenly distributed across the three prairie provinces
and British Columbia’s Peace River district.
“I think it’s a very good structure,” Lemay said.
“It’s well balanced and it will represent all business areas that we
operate in.”
He said the broadly based democratic structure should give credibility
and weight to policy positions adopted by AU delegates at the company’s
annual meetings.
Lemay’s committee has spent the past few months devising a membership
structure for the company created by last year’s merger of Agricore
Co-operative and United Grain Growers.
Agricore and UGG each had its own democratic structure, which created a
challenge for the new company.
“People came from both heritages and wanted to see their system
perpetuated,” Lemay said.
“So we looked at it as a blank sheet of paper and tried to design an
entirely new system, as if starting from scratch.”
To ensure both sides had their say, the four board members on the
committee and eight delegates who served as advisers were divided
equally between former Agricore and UGG members.
The proposal was also taken to seven focus groups for input from local
farmer members. Half the participants were from an Agricore background
and half from UGG.
The structure will consist of 105 member advisory groups, or MAGs,
representing business areas served by one or more AU facilities.
In August, each of the company’s 44,000 members will be assigned to a
MAG, although they will also be given the option of affiliating with a
different one.
Each year, the MAGs will elect delegates to the company’s annual
members meeting in Winnipeg in December. Some of the larger MAGs will
elect two, for a total of 180.
The delegates will elect 12 of the company’s 15 directors. The other
three are elected by shareholders.
Four will be elected each year to three-year terms, with all delegates
voting for all director positions.
Of the 12, there will be a minimum of two from each province and one
from the Peace district. There will be no residency restrictions for
the other five elected directors.
“That will allow the delegates to elect the best candidates no matter
where they’re from,” Lemay said.
