Keystone Agricultural Producers is getting ready to deal with grumpy calls from farmers who don’t want the railroad refund money to go to research.
But at the KAP annual meeting, a stream of Manitoba farmer representatives spoke in favour of putting it all into the Western Grains Research Foundation’s hands, and passed a resolution to support that action.
The revenue cap limits how much railways can charge for grain handling. The Canadian Transportation Agency recently announced the two national railways had overcharged farmers $59.8 million last year because they did not adjust grain freight rates to accommodate a lower amount they are allowed to charge for hopper car maintenance.
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In the past the refund has gone to the WGRF, but it has never been such a large amount. For the past seven years, the two railways have been over the allowable revenue cap by a total of $8.9 million.
Keystone’s strong position is the kind that many KAP members take pride in, something its longtime members say it can do because most of its members and the organizations that belong to it trust one another’s commitment to Manitoba farmers.
Robert McLean, who helped set up KAP 25 years ago and was just elected vice-president, said farmers and farm organizations within KAP often have differences on policy, but no one questions others’ motives.
“We all have the same vision. We’re all working together. We’re all pulling the same cards together. There’s huge momentum,” said McLean.
KAP is the prairie farm group with perhaps the biggest direct connection to provincial policy making. It is often brought inside the decision-maker’s circle while policy is being developed.
That’s a result of KAP’s willingness to work with whatever government is in power, but also because of its willingness to challenge what it sees as poor government policies, McLean said.
“We always have our differences with government, because if we don’t agree with something we work against it, and governments don’t like that. But we represent the farmers of this province and the government respects us for that,” said McLean.
“The big difference with us compared to many other farm groups over the years is that we don’t just say: ‘That’s wrong.’ We always go in with a solution: ‘This is what’s wrong. This is how you can fix it.'”
KAP gets money from membership fees and a refundable checkoff, but hopes to get “stable funding,” something the provincial government has suggested it is working toward.
At its beginning, in 1984, it was trying to operate without knowing whether it could pay its bills.
“Back then we were flying by the seat of our pants,” said McLean.
“We didn’t even have our bylaws in place.”
Somehow in the early days the organization managed to satisfy the wide range of agricultural interests involved that they could all work together, and until the last year the big tent kept all the main groups together.
That big tent was torn by the departure this year of the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association, which complained about inadequate attention being paid to livestock issues, but McLean noted he and a good portion of KAP’s members are cattle producers so that industry is still represented.
“That was very disappointing, but our issues are still the same and we still represent all Manitoba farmers,” said McLean.
