Vegetable growers in Alberta have until the end of the year to root out solutions for their levy-funded organization.
Growers have been fighting for a few years about how the Alberta Fresh Vegetable Producers board should operate.
Now, the Commercial Vegetable Producers of Alberta, an informal group of 10 to 15 producers, has gone public with a request that the government disband the board.
Spokesperson Casey Gouw Jr., an onion producer from Taber, said large scale producers have no need for the organization, and don’t want to pass along the levy of 2.25 percent of sales.
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“We don’t need (the board), period,” Gouw said. “There’s nothing that they do for you.”
The chair of the vegetable board said he thinks Gouw may be overstating the number of dissatisfied farmers. David Jensen said only four of 94 licensed growers in the province have publicly expressed their discontent.
Jensen, a vegetable grower near Taber, said the board negotiates with the government for things like crop insurance and pesticide registration.
Board manager Neil Reid said the organization also works to expand the industry in the province through market research and promoting strategic alliances.
Jensen said the board has moved a long way to deal with commercial producers’ concerns.
Levy may go down
This year, it rewrote its regulations so growers could use their own invoices with wholesalers. The board also stopped setting minimum prices for produce. Now it is working on another revision, which could include lowering the levy.
It’s time for the dissident group to move toward a happy medium, Jensen said.
“It fragments the industry, and people are fighting amongst themselves more than addressing the industry as a whole.”
He doesn’t understand how the board stops the producers from making more money, apart from what they give up through the checkoff.
Gouw said members of his group grow 2,000 acres of vegetables, have $8.5 million in sales and contribute more than 60 percent of the fees that pay the board’s budget. He said the board doesn’t listen to his group’s concerns.
“They do not take any direction,” Gouw said. “We haven’t seen in the last three years any contact or any vote on what we would like to see done.”
But Jensen said Gouw has asked the board to change some things beyond its control. He said dissident farmers have declined nominations to run for the board.
Gouw said, “they hand-pick who they’d like to see in there, then they go and buy enough licences to vote him in. I’ve been there.”
But Jensen said every producer has a vote.
The general manager of the Agricultural Products Marketing Council, which oversees boards and commissions in Alberta, said a breakdown in communication is causing a lot of the problems in the industry.
Brian Rhiness said the government is giving the vegetable board until the end of the year to find some common ground.
His council hired Price Waterhouse to do an independent review of the board.
“I think it’s important for the producers and the organization and government to all understand where the organization is today before we start talking about where we want to take it tomorrow,” Rhiness said.
Once the report and the board’s new proposals are in, he said the marketing council will consult with farmers, and may hold a plebiscite on whether the board should continue.
