The Alberta government, hoping to develop the province’s value-added industries, is set to make sweeping changes in the way agriculture services are delivered.
Alberta Agriculture staff will no longer deliver producer support programs like fertilizer recommendations, crop reports or variety testing.
Instead, programs will focus on helping farmers add value to their crops or livestock, said Brian Rhiness, assistant deputy minister of Alberta Agriculture’s industry development sector.
“Our primary agriculture community needs more resources going into business development kinds of development, new marketing choices and value chains,” said Rhiness, whose sector’s goal is to help the province reach targets of $10 billion in primary production and $20 billion in processing by 2010.
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Without extra money to reach the goals, the department must change the way services are delivered, he said.
“We’ve got to find more money somewhere because they seem reluctant to give me more money for my budget,” said Rhiness.
Now, about $4.5 million, or 10 percent of the department’s $450 million budget, is used to increase value-added production. That will double to $8 to $9 million, or 20 percent of the budget.
Part of the money will come from savings gained by amalgamating rural offices with grain companies, applied research stations, municipal governments and other government agencies.
“The changes were laid out in a draft report Industry Development Sector Review, Recommendations for Change, which was obtained by The Western Producer.
In its review process, the department identified 18 hub office locations in the province where the department will focus its resources either in offices of its own, or in partnerships with others.
“By clustering staff in fewer locations, we will be able to group people with similar expertise together, as well as to have a diversity of disciplines in one location. This provides for better collaboration and exchange of ideas, which will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our service,” said the report.
But Liberal leader Ken Nicol said by focusing only on value-added, the government has picked agricultural winners and losers.
“If a producer wants to talk about changing their farm operation in order to get any support out of these specialists, they’re going to have to show which one of these value chains they fit into. If they don’t happen to fit into one of these value chains they’re marginalized.
“The small non-specialized farm is going to be marginalized by this change,” said Nicol, who attended one of the staff meetings where employees discussed the changes.
“They’re going to focus on the industries that they see that have a potential for value added,” he said.
“They didn’t take more money into agriculture. They lopped off a whole large service area, being the non-specialized, non-commercialized farmer.”
There are now 51 offices in rural Alberta. Under the 18 hub office plan, Rhiness said farmers will have more “contact points” with the department not fewer, even though some offices have been closed.
He cited the example of a specialist who was moved from Sangudo to Mayerthorpe. The specialist still travels to the smaller community of Sangudo and splits his time between the two centres.
The changes will mean job losses, but it is not yet clear how many.
“One implication of providing these new and expanded services to the industry is that some staff will transition to the private sector, industry organizations and other governments,” said the report.
As well, the traditional crop specialist job may be assigned to local applied research associations across the province, said Rhiness.
“Maybe it’s better for our staff to be employed by local applied research associations and directed by a local board that could talk about what are the needs in the local area.”
Farmer who want to reach a specialist will call a provincial call centre for seasonal advice or information about programs and services.
Rhiness said when his staff talked to producers, they were told farmers don’t care where the answer comes from, as long as they get the best answer.
“The producers in the Peace country are asking the same questions as the producers in Lethbridge. You get your answers now. This is going to give our clients instant answers,” he said.
But the real push will be to help farmers get extra value from their crops, the report said.
“The sector will allocate significant resources to build the food and non-food processing industries in Alberta. This includes increasing research capacity, establishing a business incubator unit and enhancing the ability of the Leduc Food Processing Development Centre to meet client needs,” said the report.
The changes are also designed to provide business development services to support primary and processing agriculture businesses, the report stated.
After re-organization there will be six divisions in the Alberta Agriculture’s industry development sector. There are now four regions and three line divisions – the animal industry division, plant industry and processing industry.
