A meeting with senior Canadian Grain Commission officials hasn’t made the National Farmers Union feel any better about proposed changes to the CGC.
Grain commission president Barry Senft and chief grain inspector Len Seguin met with members of the NFU’s national executive for more than two hours March 26.
But they failed to sway the farmers union from its belief that the commission is abandoning its role as the farmers’ watchdog.
“If we were concerned before that meeting that the CGC is drifting away from its mandate to protect the interests of farmers, we remain just as concerned, or more so, after the meeting,” NFU executive secretary Darrin Qualman said in an interview.
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The farmers union wants the House of Commons standing committee on agriculture to hold public hearings on the proposed CGC changes.
It has submitted a 23-page brief to agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief in which it called on the minister to personally take control of the CGC review in order to protect farmers’ interests and demanded that he “re-evaluate” the continued service of the CGC commissioners and managers.
The criticisms raised by the NFU in recent weeks focused on two specific issues.
The NFU said farmers report that protein tests on the same sample of wheat can vary widely from elevator to elevator, up to three percentage points by some accounts.
“As a result, farmers may be losing millions of dollars,” said NFU Saskatchewan co-ordinator Stewart Wells. The farmers union says the commission should conduct regular inspections of protein testers to ensure their accuracy.
Seguin said the commission shares the NFU’s concerns but it would be extremely costly to calibrate and monitor every protein tester in every country elevator. Instead, the commission has proposed giving farmers the right to have a sample sent to CGC headquarters for an official protein measurement, as is now the case for grade, dockage and moisture.
He added that weigh scales are currently the responsibility of Measurement Canada. The commission is currently negotiating with that federal agency to become involved in the process.
As well, the NFU doesn’t like the CGC’s proposal to “close the gap” between primary and export grade standards by adopting the tighter export standard for foreign material at country elevators.
The farmers said this could result in up to 15 percent of the wheat now falling into the top grade being downgraded to No. 2. They said the change will benefit grain handling companies at the expense of farmers.
Seguin said most of the grain being delivered by farmers already meets export standards and the proposed change simply recognizes that reality and encourages the delivery of cleaner grain. He said the change will also limit the ability of elevator companies to blend down to the existing tolerances.
The farmers union has been virtually alone among the major farm organizations in campaigning against the proposed CGC reforms, something that Qualman finds difficult to understand.
