Commission dismisses entire marketing board and appoints trustee to manage negotiations; growers form new group
CHATHAM, ONT.— Just three days after learning the Ontario government had fired their marketing organization’s board of directors and appointed a trustee, the province’s processing vegetable growers established a new group with their former leadership at its head.
About 100 growers voted on whether to create the new group March 6 in an impromptu meeting held in Chatham. The meeting followed another meeting organized by the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission to introduce producers to the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers’ new trustee, Elmer Buchanan.
Provincial Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal appointed Buchanan, who is a former provincial agriculture minister and, until his recent resignation, vice-chair of the commission.
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Only five producers objected to establishing the new group, said its chair, Francis Dobbelaar, following a vote that took place behind closed doors.
The decision to move ahead with the group marks yet another twist in the long-running power struggle between growers, processors and the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission, which oversees agricultural boards with certain marketing powers in Ontario.
The dispute erupted last year when the commission proposed revoking the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers’ collective bargaining powers.
The marketing board negotiates on behalf of its 450 growers with the province’s primary processors to set minimum prices for crops such as tomatoes, peas, sweet corn, carrots and onions.
Many other provincial marketing boards hold similar bargaining powers, and Dobbelaar said groups are closely monitoring the processing growers’ situation.
Other boards see the government’s decision to step in “as a prototype for how they’re going to run the industry, treat collective bargaining,” he said.
Leal’s March 3 emailed statement to media said he had heard from different corners of the sector that negotiations had reached an im-passe between Ontario’s tomato growers and processors for the 2017 crop season.
“Risking this year’s tomato crop and the thousands of jobs that support it is something I am not prepared to do,” Leal said.
In a letter to members of the marketing organization, deputy agriculture minister Greg Meredith said the province had made a regulation under the Farm Products Marketing Act to terminate the organization’s leadership and appoint Buchanan until the end of 2017. He also asked them to immediately return any board-owned devices. The government expects a new board to be elected to resume governance of the organization in 2018.
Buchanan faced a hostile but subdued crowd of about 250 people March 6, mostly growers but also processors, retired growers, government representatives and industry onlookers.
He emphasized the need to accept what had happened, move ahead and improve relationships between growers and processors.
“I would like your industry to be like a family,” he said, noting that occasional disputes were all right, but ultimately processors and growers should see themselves united in a value chain.
He assured growers that he believes “strongly” in the collective bargaining process and also be-lieves that growers are entitled to elected representatives.
“I didn’t come here to lower prices for raw product.”
Buchanan also told growers he did not support revoking the regulation that enacts their bargaining powers, although he supported some adjustments. (Leal put the commission’s regulatory proposal on hold last year to allow for industry consultation.)
Buchanan said he wanted to quickly establish ad-hoc advisory committees and identified the end of March as his target for wrapping up price negotiations.
March 1 had been the deadline for tomato processors to submit their final pricing offers. Buchanan and Jim Clark, the commission’s interim chair, confirmed their receipt, but each said they didn’t know details.
During a question and answer session, David Epp, a Leamington tomato grower, challenged the legality of the province’s actions. Epp was the lone individual allowed to deliver his questions directly to Buchanan.
Buchanan said the agriculture ministry’s legal counsel had advised him that the province has acted legally.
Concerns about the industry have been longstanding and wide-ranging, Buchanan told growers.
“It’s not just one processor.”
In an interview following the morning meeting, he listed examples of other concerns, such as conditions, delivery dates and flexibility.
Steve Lamoure, president of the seven-member Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Processors Association, had also raised similar concerns in a February interview.
“(Processors) just wanted to talk to their growers,” Buchanan said.
At least two processors have threatened “hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of tons pull-out of production,” he said.
The government is concerned, he added.
“I’m here to restore faith in the system.”
As growers congregated in one section of the room, Buchanan at first looked on, at one point leaning on a file box of papers containing grower questions and the names of growers who were interested in becoming part of his advisory committee. However, as discussion about a new organization took shape, he stepped in and said he was nervous about the growers creating a parallel structure.
“The fight is to figure out how we get along and how we get an advisory committee up.”
Dobbelaar, who conducted the session, said the province had manufactured a crisis so it could step in.
“There was no problem,” he said to applause.
Tomato negotiations were ongoing with the exception of one processor, he said, identifying it as Highbury Canco Corp. in Leamington.
Dobbelaar said the new group would be named the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers Association. Among its first priorities will be seeking legal advice and determining how growers can retrieve money paid into their former organization.
Al Mussell, research lead at Agri-Food Economic Systems, which specializes in agricultural economics and policy analysis, said the commission has replaced marketing board chairs in the past, but dismissing an entire board and replacing its members with an individual trustee may be a first.
Mussell said some people might view Buchanan’s appointment as concerning, although he is capable and experienced.
“(They) could get the perception that the commission had a strained relationship with the processing vegetable growers, and then it turned around and appointed its vice-chair to lead it,” he said.
“How will that lead to a balanced outcome of this situation?”
Mussell also wondered why Leal did not use established routes of mediation and arbitration when price negotiations reached an impasse.
Buchanan said he would not speculate if the negotiation process would involve arbitration.
