Each week, our editorial board meets to discuss the topic and position we’ll take for our Page 10 editorial.
Last week’s meeting was particularly animated, as we discussed Sask-atchewan Pulse Growers’ pending decision on making its mandatory checkoff voluntary. It’s the only group left in Saskatchewan with a mandatory checkoff.
Farmers can obviously do what they please with their money, but debating the merits of a voluntary checkoff is worthwhile in an agricultural publication, so we chose to address the topic.
What ensued was the most dynamic conversation I’ve seen at the editorial board since I joined The Western Producer. (Granted, that’s only been about 16 months.)
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Bruce Dyck, D’Arce McMillan, Terry Fries, myself and Michael Raine all chipped in. Our southern Alberta editor, Barb Glen, usually sits in, but she was out in the field, as it were.
The principle that farmers should be able to opt out of a checkoff is now engrained throughout the Prairies. That’s as it should be. But as we bantered back and forth, the argument that this instance ought to be the exception to that trend, and that the checkoff should be kept mandatory, emerged as the one we believed would serve pulse farmers best in this, the United Nations’ International Year of Pulses.
The argument is laid out in the editorial, but the foundation of it is that while other crops benefit more from private research, pulse crops research is funded more by growers, so check-off money is vital.
Yes, pulses had a good year and millions more were collected than expected, but as the editorial explains, there are other ways to address that, just as there are other ways to address accountability at the pulse growers board. In the years to come, crop research will be the life of farming.
There was a lot of jawing among us before we settled on this position, but that’s what an introspective agricultural publication should do. However, missing from Page 10 is the voice of farmers, so we would like to hear from you.
Let us know what you think of checkoffs, whether they should be voluntary and whether you think boards such as the pulse growers and others are truly accountable.
You can participate in the debate by writing us at newsroom@producer.com.
