DRESDEN, Ont. — The Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission is looking to change the way contracts are set for processing vegetables in the province.
Commission chair Geri Kamenz said the idea is to develop a more robust and competitive industry.
“We’re looking at what else we can do structurally so that people can maximize their opportunities,” Kamenz said.
“Politics has nothing to do with it.… We’ve heard comments from processors and growers alike.”
Kamenz said the proposal for change is part of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s challenge to expand the Ontario agriculture and food sector.
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Francis Dobbelaar, an Ontario tomato grower and chair of the marketing board representing growers, is concerned with the proposal. He said the commission has released too few details to judge whether proposed changes will have a positive or negative impact on growers.
According to the “summary of proposal” released Feb. 16, the commission “learned that processors would prefer to negotiate with their own active growers of the vegetable that is the subject for negotiation.”
In addition, minimum requirements are to be set for active growers to be part of the negotiation process.
The growers’ association and the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Processors Association can now appoint up to 10 individuals to negotiate prices for each regulated processing vegetable.
“Obviously we do not believe that changes to a democratic process should occur as a result of concerns expressed by processors or even by a relatively small number of growers,” said the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers’ March 30 newsletter.
“The board has repeatedly indicated to the FPMC that the overwhelming majority of growers support the present system in which elected representatives determine who negotiates annual processing vegetable contracts on behalf of all growers.”
Dobbelaar said the FPMC may have been influenced by a small set of growers and one particular processor.
“If you give preferential treatment to one company, then that company can eat the other companies’ lunches,” he said. “We try to do this (set contracts) as fair as we can. That’s what we’re elected for.”
The OPVG represents farmers who grow 13 processing vegetables.
