When Peter Tuinema looks around at meetings of the Ontario Wheat Producers’ Marketing Board, he doesn’t see just wheat producers.
The farmers seated at the board table are as much corn and soybean growers as they are wheat growers.
That, in a nutshell, is why Tuinema supports a proposed merger of the province’s three biggest crop commodity groups – the wheat board, the Ontario Corn Producers’ Association and the Ontario Soybean Growers.
“Eighty percent of crop farmers in Ontario grow all three crops,” he said in an interview last week.
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“The three organizations are dealing a lot of time with the same issues, with the same input providers, the same grain companies, the same customers, the same regulators.”
Representatives from the three groups have signed a memorandum of understanding to merge into one big organization by September 2008.
The organization, which would represent some 25,000 producers, will take the first step toward amalgamation by moving into the same office location in Guelph, Ont., in 2005. Plans are also under way to hold a joint producer conference next spring.
The details of the merger, including the structure of the new organization, have yet to be worked out and will be the subject of ongoing discussions among the three boards and with producers.
The three groups have different structures: the wheat board is a marketing board with selling powers; the soybean growers is a marketing board without selling powers; and the corn growers is a producer association.
Tuinema described the agreement signed in early July as a road map for the three organizations as they work toward the common goal of creating a “business atmosphere” that allows for the highest returns for growers.
The merger will also save the three groups some money, not only by locating in one office with one staff, but also by eliminating duplication of effort in research and lobbying on issues ranging from nutrient management to farm safety nets.
Predominant crops
In the 10 years ending in 2003, Ontario farmers seeded an average of 2.03 million acres of soybeans, 1.8 million acres of corn and 700,000 acres of wheat.
During that same period, production averaged 2.1 million tonnes of soybeans, 5.1 million tonnes of corn and 1.2 million tonnes of wheat.
Tuinema said wheat is the smallest of the three crops, but that doesn’t mean the interests of wheat growers will be neglected or overshadowed in the new organization.
Nor does he foresee any cases in which the interests of wheat growers would be at odds with those of soy or corn producers.
“You’re still going back to the same producers, and what’s good for one is good for all, so I really don’t see that happening,” he said.
The Ontario wheat board has gone through major changes in the last couple of years, losing its status as a the single desk seller of wheat grown in the province, selling significantly reduced volumes and assuming a much less significant role in the province’s wheat economy.
However, Tuinema said the decision to amalgamate is unrelated to those changes, adding the Ontario board will not give up its selling powers in any new structure.
“That certainly has not been discussed at all and we certainly don’t see that,” he said.
“Wheat producers will make that decision.”
