Although it’s been whispered about for more than a year, and we even reported on the rumblings a couple of months ago, news that Richardson International is pulling out of the Canola Council of Canada is unsettling and bizarre.
After all, the CCC is a high-functioning, an influential and an exemplary value chain organization, one that many others yearn to emulate. It gets the attention of the Prime Minister, in a government that isn’t necessarily focused on farmers. It has great contacts in China, which is the biggest and most promising market. And it creates a forum and community for a crop that is the biggest moneymaker in Canadian agriculture. It’s not something to take for granted.
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But Richardson has decided to stop being a “core funder” of the organization, which is comprised of farmer organizations, grain companies, seed companies, chemical companies and others. A number of smaller grain companies aren’t members, and one other large grain company is said to be considering ditching the council too.
I don’t know the real reasons Richardson has decided to pull out. Here’s what our reporter Sean Pratt was told today:
“We don’t think we got the value out of it,” said Jean-Marc Ruest, Richardson’s senior vice-president of corporate affairs.
Read more about Richardson’s view here.
Ruest questioned the council’s work on market development, which he suggested might not be necessary, and also questioned the council’s robust agronomy outreach work with farmers, which he said private providers could supply and already do supply.
The company was one of those pushing the council to merge with other oilseed groups, for soybeans and flax, and when that wasn’t happening any time soon, it pulled the plug on its participation.
This is both bizarre and unsettling for many farmers, who see the council as the champion of their most important commodity, but they might end up the winners anyway. No doubt the council will have to scale back some of its activities, with Richardson’s cash removed, but sometimes getting rid of a chronic complainer helps those who are more committed and collaborative. I am a big fan of English soccer, and I’ve seen many cases of unhappy players poisoning a team. Better to sell them and have a happy locker room. It’s the old “rotten apple spoiling the barrel” situation.
The council now becomes proportionately more farmer-oriented, with grower organizations making up a bigger share of the remaining funding and involvement. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s pretty easy for big corporate entities to get their way when sitting down across a table from farmer representatives who don’t necessarily have the same amount of information, experience and education – let alone control – as the corporates. Having a stronger farmer voice won’t be a bad thing. It’d be bad if more corporates left the council, and endanger its very existence, but if a couple of malcontents walk, that can be survived and perhaps offer a chance for an improved focus.
The most troubling element of this situation is the implication that the giant grain companies might be feeling that they don’t need to work in collaboration with the rest of their industries, including farmers. With three giant grain companies dominating Western Canada, and being integrated, pipeline-like companies, perhaps they feel they have the market power to run things they way they like, and make suppliers and buyers conform to their wishes. That’s what a lot of farmers have feared, and a lot of eyes will be watching how this unfolds from here.
In a way the complaints from some of the grain companies offer a backhanded compliment to the council, at least from the farmer’s perspective: a lot of the work the council has been doing has been of direct benefit to individual farmers, those who will need to produce the 52 bushels per acre hoped-for by 2025, and if that focus on the farmer is a problem, it’s a good problem for the council to have.
