A consultant hired by pulse grower groups has recommended a move away from the Canadian Grain Commission’s licensing and bonding system toward a farmer-funded producer protection system similar to that in Ontario.
The same firm found considerable faults with that very model in a similar study it did on behalf of the grain commission two years ago.
That makes at least one producer skeptical about the latest findings. Pense, Sask., farmer Jim Wood, who lost money in the Naber Seed and Grain Co. Ltd. receivership, said consultant’s reports are like election polls or consumer surveys.
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“You should really know who’s paying for the survey before they tell you the results.”
Under the proposal, a producer-funded plan would act as insurance in the event of company bankruptcies and pay producers money owed to them from such things as grain deliveries.
In a February 2001 report prepared for the grain commission, Kelly Associates found faults with the producer security model employed by Ontario’s corn, soybean and canola growers .
The consultant said that it would take 10 years to build an adequate fund of $1.5 million, that there would be a risk of exhausting the fund if there was an early business failure and that administrative costs would be relatively high compared to the amount of producer money collected.
Randy Baldwin, a principal of Kelly Associates, said the Ontario model is more viable today because producers are pushing for change.
In the 2001 report, the grain commission was driving the process. Today it’s the three prairie pulse associations and that makes a big difference, he said.
“If it’s driven by producers we think it has got a much better chance of something changing than where it was previously more of a top-down kind of initiative.”
Baldwin understands producer skepticism about consultant’s reports, but said his firm is not in the business of providing answers that its employers want to hear.
Saskatchewan Pulse Growers executive director Garth Patterson said the consultant was chosen for its familiarity with the issue.
He assured producers that Kelly Associates has written an unbiased and objective report.
He said the Ontario model looks to be the option that best addresses the criteria set out by the pulse grower associations.
“We have instructed the consultants to do further study into that recommendation,” said Patterson.
Baldwin said the Ontario model could be implemented within a reasonable time frame.
As well, it would be a producer-controlled system, which should generate some degree of buy-in on behalf of growers.
