Organic growers say they were blindsided by a doubling in the cost of doing business with the Canadian Wheat Board.
“I’m not happy about it,” said Holly Peterson, owner of Heritage Organic Farms in Tompkins, Sask.
The agency implemented new rates for its Organic Fixed Spread Contract Oct. 1 that are much higher than last year’s rates.
For instance, the cost of obtaining an export licence to ship wheat to the United States is $7.68 per tonne, up from $3.88.
Peterson estimates she will be paying the CWB in excess of $4,000 to obtain export licences to market this year’s wheat crop.
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“I guess the thing that staggers most of us on the whole issue is they do not market our grain,” she said.
“We’ve been in organics before the Canadian Wheat Board even woke up and realized there were organic farmers out there and all of the sudden they’re on board. And it’s all about money.”
Peterson was further miffed that the board didn’t bother sending out a letter to organic farmers advising them of the changes, choosing instead to post the new rates on its website.
CWB spokesperson Maureen Fitzhenry said the Organic Fixed Spread Contract was created in response to complaints about the old Producer Direct Sale program.
Growers wanted more certainty, so the board implemented a program with a fixed fee that would be reviewed annually. When this year’s review took place grain prices were much higher than they were a year earlier.
“(The rates) changed in response to market conditions having changed,” said Fitzhenry.
Doug Walsh, general manager of Artesian Acres Inc., an organic brokerage firm in Asquith, Sask., said the original rates were reasonable but he knew the board wouldn’t keep them there. A year later it costs twice as much to sell organic wheat into the North American market.
“This just smacks of, ‘prices are high, so we’re going to take our little piece of the pie,’ ” he said.
He expects Artesian Acres will transfer $50,000 from farmers’ pockets to the CWB this year, sending the agency an average of about $500 per permit.
Walsh accused the board of being underhanded in the way it went about the rate hike, announcing it on the website instead of sending a letter to growers explaining the increase.
“(Growers) were completely blindsided by it and choked about it,” he said.
Fitzhenry said that in addition to putting it on the CWB website, the agency included the information in a weekly media bulletin and in its on-line newsletter.
It also discussed the rate increase with virtually every organic marketer.
“We believed that we were giving people adequate advance warning,” she said.
This was the first rate change since the Organic Fixed Spread Contract was created in 2007-08, so the agency is open to suggestions.
“Certainly we would consider reviewing how that notification occurs in the future,” said Fitzhenry.
