BRANDON, Man. (Staff) – The Western Grain Elevator Association wants to charge a Manitoba farm group a fee for deducting a checkoff.
The fee could be as high as 10 percent, which members of Keystone Agricultural Producers denounced as unacceptable at a meeting here last week.
“We are customers and in some cases we are co-op owners of the elevators that want to negotiate some sort of fee for service,” said Kevin Wadham of Virden.
Elevators will start automatically collecting one-half of one percent of grain sales for KAP on May 15.
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Les Jacobson, KAP president, explained amendments to the provincial Agricultural Producers Organization Funding Act now allow a designated farm lobby group to collect a checkoff from all farmers.
But the same amendments also allow a fee for service. Jacobson said the elevators don’t charge other groups that collect checkoffs in the same way.
Barry Routledge of Lenore noted when farmers choose to ask for their money back, KAP will still be on the hook for the service fee. Routledge said this would unfairly penalize the organization.
Terry Wareham, a member from Newdale, said the elevator association could set “a dangerous precedent” by charging the fees, and commodity groups should work with KAP to make sure it doesn’t happen.
