Saskatchewan cow-calf producers want more information before they sign on to a proposed umbrella organization for the provincial beef industry.
The idea has been contentious among the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association membership since it was raised more than a year ago.
Some are concerned that the umbrella group would take over the 95-year-old organization once it accesses funding through check-off dollars.
They are also worried that the Saskatchewan Cattle Feeders Association will dominate the umbrella group and cow-calf producers will lose their voice.
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“As an elected member of the board of directors of the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association, I do not support the idea of one organization controlling the check-off dollars and diluting the lobby efforts of the cow-calf sector,” wrote Michael Burgess of Big Beaver in a recent letter to the editor.
At the SSGA semi-annual meeting in mid-January, members voted to support the formation of the group and bring a final proposal to the June annual meeting.
However, another resolution called for any change to the structure and mandate of the SSGA to be made only after members have been consulted and allowed to vote.
President Dennis Fuglerud said the board does not have the power to decide on its own but it did pass a motion at its November meeting to support the umbrella proposal.
Fuglerud said that was to give board members direction and wasn’t “intended to override anything the membership wanted.”
He said there were a number of questions the SSGA representatives on the umbrella organization framework committee couldn’t answer at the semi-annual meeting because they hadn’t investigated that far.
“They didn’t know how much effort to put into a proposal,” Fuglerud said.
The framework committee includes two official board representatives, Jack Hextall and Brian Longworth, and a number of other board members who were asked by the Saskatchewan Cattle Feeders Association to sit on the committee as area representatives, Fuglerud said.
The cattle feeders initiated the idea of the umbrella lobby after commissioning a study to look at the future of the province’s beef industry.
The SCFA and SSGA already have their joint Saskatchewan Beef Industry Committee, which works on policy issues but can’t access check-off funds on its own.
Fuglerud also said many producers have both cow-calf and feeding operations, leading them to be members of both organizations.
The two Canadian Cattlemen’s Association directors elected at the stock growers’ semi-annual meeting are both involved in the feeding sector. Bob Ivey of Ituna is a past-president of the SCFA and Hextall is involved with Pipestone Feeders at Grenfell.
But Fuglerud said everyone is aware that the cow-calf sector is important and must be healthy.
“We’re conscious of every link in the chain,” he said.
