Delegates to Federated Co-operatives Ltd. annual meeting last week passed a number of resolutions on behalf of rural members.
Members from southwestern Saskatchewan told their management to investigate the creation of a central, agricultural seed quality lab.
Delegates from Swift Current proposed the resolution, explaining that growth in the seed and crop protection areas of FCL’s business, as well as seed quality liability issues, have created the need.
Most of the more than 800 delegates attending FCL’s annual meeting voted in favour of the idea.
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FCL member co-ops have 72 on-line Agro Centres across Western Canada.
Larry Kennedy of Shamrock, Sask., said the liability for seed dealers has grown with the increase in the number of varieties and farm size.
“A single farm can now be planting 10,000 acres of canola. If that farmer bought it from us and in a good year the area average (yield) was 40 bushels (per acre) of $8 (per bu.) canola and that seed was bad, we could be on the hook for $3.2 million with one grower,” he said.
Other delegates agreed, saying more co-op members than ever are paying for seed testing and local co-ops are in an ideal spot to be the depots for seed test samples and results.
Scott Banda, FCL’s vice-president of corporate and legal affairs, said the board will examine the economic potential of creating a seed lab and report back to the members.
“It may be something practical, it may not be. The board looks at the advisability of the resolutions and if they need more analysis, they pass it on to the management to examine,” he said.
Other rural and smaller member co-op initiatives included the creation of a central food sales website that would allow rural member customers to examine products and their availability on-line before they head to town for groceries.
Small co-ops also introduced another website-related resolution asking for the creation of a website that would provide an internal “bargain finder” that would give smaller local boards a chance to buy the “used and castoffs” from larger urban co-ops.
Banda said that initiative makes sense and is in keeping with co-operative principles.
Rural delegates from Olds, Alta., proposed a resolution to examine the prospect of building a beef packing plant.
Banda said the board of directors decided that the beef packing industry is too unstable to properly analyze the viability of such a venture.
“I can’t say whether the board will take another look at it or not. Up until (March 2) we thought the (United States) border was going to open to (Canadian) cattle March 7 too,” he said.
Ethanol production is another issue that was brought to the attention of the board and failed to generate a new FCL project.
Bud Van Iderstine, head of refining for Consumers’ Co-operative Refineries Limited, said FCL’s expertise is in the fossil fuels industry and the co-op is planning to blend ethanol once it is mandated in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
He said the business unit would stay out of ethanol for the time being and would focus on managing crude supplies and sulfur rich oil upgrading, as well as fuel marketing and delivery.
There was good news and bad news in the co-op’s agricultural sector in 2004.
The BSE crisis is blamed for a 16 percent shrink in pelletized feed sales, to $70 million from $83 million in 2003.
Good feed grain supplies and a healthy forage crop also put pressure on this sector. However, crop supplies were up 18 percent in 2004 to $206 million.
FCL reported $3.8 billion in sales in 2004 with net earnings rising by $51 million to $333 million.
The co-op returned $231 million in patronage allocations to member co-ops and retained $588 million in savings to fund ongoing expansions and projects.
