Why it matters: Farmers had contract security of two years previously, but new regulations would have taken that down to none — and processors could have dropped growers whenever they wished.

The matter was the biggest concern for farmers when the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers’ (OPVG) members met last week in London for their annual meeting.

Board chair Suzanne Van Bommel said the board has heard the concerns of growers since Regulation 440 was released last fall. The board took those concerns to the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commissions (OFPMC), which is imposing new bylaws on the organization.

OFPMC chair Jim Clark told the meeting the commission, which regulates marketing boards in the province, agrees with the change.

“I know that changes to term contracts immediately caused some concern to the industry,” he said. “I have made it clear we are open to alternative solutions.”

Van Bommel said the contract security changes in Regulation 440, the government regulation that sets out how the OPVG will be run, were a surprise.

Here’s how the regulations worked:

• In previous regulations, a processor could terminate a grower with cause — for a food safety or production issue, for example.
• The grower could appeal to a local board and the board would decide whether it was just cause to remove the grower.
• If the issue was because of a business relationship problem, the processor had to give the grower two crop years’ notice that it wouldn’t renew a contract.

The new regulation said:

• A processor could terminate without cause immediately, starting next December.

“That’s when we started to hear a great deal from growers, et cetera, and they said ‘Whoa’,” Van Bommel said.

Van Bommel said the OFPMC heard from processors that having a local grower group in charge of whether cause was just wasn’t fair. There was also a concern that it was difficult to establish cause based on the grower board guidelines. There was also concern that two years was too long to try to terminate a grower.

The vegetable growers offered a compromise that they would adjust their own regulations to make cause for grower termination more exact, and that the required notice before termination would be moved to one year.

The commission has accepted that compromise, Clark said, but despite questions from growers he couldn’t say when it would be in effect.

What’s the bottom line for growers?

Van Bommel said she expects the revised contract security language will make its way through the government process before next December — which was the original timeline for the use of the clause by processors, so growers shouldn’t be subject to the language that most concerned them.

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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That’s what Ontario’s processing vegetable growers heard at their annual meeting from the chair of the group that regulates farm marketing in the province.

That doesn’t mean some farmers didn’t still question the province’s move to fire the board of the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers (OPVG) and its staff in 2017.

Jim Clark, the chair of the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission (OFPMC), said changes to the industry were necessary to continue to break down silos between parts of the value chain and move the sector forward.

The bottom line: Challenges remain in sorting out the new regulations imposed on the organization, but most of the way forward has been set for the sector.

Arpad Pasztor spoke to the concerns of many growers in the industry over the past year, as he addressed Clark during a question and answer session at OPVG’s annual meeting last week.

“I’ve been trying to get my head around the whole situation since it started,” said Pasztor, a cucumber grower. “For the life of me, I don’t understand why this is happening even now. I’ve been involved in other marketing boards. This is one of the best run and best for the growers’ sake.”

Pasztor challenged the marketing commission’s record and suggested it favoured processors over producers.

That prompted Clark, whose main job is the executive director of the Ontario Cattle Feeders’ Association, to defend his farming credentials.

“At the end of the day (we) have to start moving this thing forward, people. There’s enough blame going around for everybody, trust me.”

However, most of the annual meeting’s comments were saved for details about the way forward, including clarification on contract security language in Regulation 440.

In the room were several of the province’s leading growers and former board members, including Francis Dobbelaar, a Wallaceburg grower, former chair of the board and the leader of a new organization formed for vegetable growers after the OPVG board was dismissed.

“I trust Jim and I trust his direction,” Dobbelaar said. “We’re moving forward and that’s what we should do, but we have to make sure we follow good governance practices.”

The changes to the board practices were necessary to encourage processing to stay in the province, Clark said.

How did we get here?

• In 2016, the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission proposed opening up the marketing of processing vegetables in Ontario. Jeff Leal, the Ontario agriculture minister stayed that process after a producer and industry outcry.
• Last winter, after little progress on changing the sector, Leal fired the board and installed a trustee when a major tomato buyer, Highbury Canco, refused to negotiate with the OPVG.
• Most of the rest of the employees were dismissed and the trustee negotiated contracts for the 2017 growing season.
• Half of a new board was appointed, and half was elected last fall.
• A board chair, Suzanne Van Bommel, was appointed for two years.
• The OFPMC, under new chair Jim Clark, was given the task of managing the transition to a new reality for processing vegetable marketing, including the fall release of Regulation 440 a new set of rules for the sector.

Audit called sloppy

Processing vegetable growers, their organization’s board of directors and its lawyer all called for investigation of the details of an audit of the board by the provincial government.

The audit, conducted by the internal audit division of the provincial government’s treasury board secretariat, was critical of the cost of board per diems, calling them four times the average for farmer boards. Language used in the audit has created confusion over whether costs stated are for the entire board or per board member, and the audit makes reference to 12 board members when there are nine.

Van Bommel said the board has requested a meeting with the internal audit division and has been working with its own auditors to check the numbers of the government audit.

“Auditors are very, very careful,” board lawyer Rob Wilson told growers. “It strikes me that this document you’ve got isn’t an audit. It’s a disappointing document and disparaging to this organization.”

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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The Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers (OPVG) on Friday announced the results from an election meeting for two District 1 directors, held Thursday evening in Chatham.

Tomato and bean grower David Epp of Leamington and onion and tomato grower Pascal Jennen of Dresden are elected to serve two-year terms representing District 1 on the OPVG board.

A District 2 meeting scheduled for Friday evening in Strathroy is cancelled, however, as just one candidate, bean and green pea grower Mike Lenders of Ilderton, let his name stand for nomination by the Sept. 18 deadline.

Lenders thus has been acclaimed to fill the one available District 2 spot, also for a two-year term.

A District 3 meeting, which had been scheduled for Tuesday (Sept. 26) in Courtland, was also cancelled when not even one candidate was nominated by the Sept. 18 deadline.

The OPVG’s new general manager, Cathy Lennon, said the organization “will look into the next steps necessary in order to find a director to fill this empty position.”

The makeup of the OPVG’s board became a contentious issue this spring after the previous board was dismissed by provincial Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal. The dismissal followed an impasse in contract talks between processing tomato growers and Ontario’s main processors.

Leal then appointed a trustee to assume the association’s power to negotiate contracts with processors for processing tomatoes for 2017.

Ontario’s Farm Products Marketing Commission (OFPMC) in June set up a process to form a new OPVG board, starting with a commission-appointed chair, four commission-appointed directors and four grower-elected directors.

The OFPMC-appointed directors will serve one-year terms and are expected to be replaced by four more directors in elections next year, also for two-year terms.

The OFPMC this week named Suzanne van Bommel of Belmont as chair and growers Eric Allaer, Michael Denys, Tom Hebblethwaite and Chris Stewart as the four board appointees. — AGCanada.com Network

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Suzanne van Bommel, a farm co-owner with a long history of work in the agriculture sector, has been appointed chair.

The province dismissed the previous board of directors and chair in March when negotiations over 2017 processing tomato contracts stalled. A trustee, former provincial agriculture minister Elmer Buchanan, dismissed senior staff and has run the board since then.

Buchanan is stepping back with the appointment of a new general manager, Cathy Lennon, and the creation of the new board.

Van Bommel also has long-term ties to Ontario’s governing Liberals, serving as chief of staff to former agriculture minister Steve Peters. She is from near Belmont, Ont., has also been a federal Liberal election candidate and worked in the renewable fuels industry.

Van Bommel today is president of the GPS Group, a government relations firm providing public relations and issues management services within the agriculture, food and energy sectors. She and her family also produce corn, soybeans and peas on their 560-acre farm, and she manages a hog finishing operation.

As OPVG chair, she has been appointed for a two-year term, with the potential for reappointment up to 10 years.

The province has also appointed four other growers, all with extensive experience in processing vegetable production, to the board. They were selected by the Farm Products Marketing Commission after a public call for applications for directors.

The four were appointed for one-year terms and their positions will be filled in grower elections next year.

They include:

• Eric Allaer, Port Lambton, who grows tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, seed corn, field corn, soybeans and wheat on 3,500 acres. He has farmed for 33 years and is a turkey producer.
• Michael Denys, Wallaceburg, who has farmed for 41 years and operates 300 acres with his son producing sweet corn, seed corn, green beans, peas, soybean and wheat.
• Tom Hebblethwaite, Blenheim, who has farmed for 42 years and runs 1000 acres with his son, producing tomatoes, corn, seed corn, soybeans and wheat.
• Chris Stewart, Cedar Springs, with 35 years of farming experience, growing tomatoes, seed corn, soybeans and wheat on 1,500 acres.

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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The commission last week released proposed amendments to provincial Regulations 441 and 400, which would set up an eight-member OPVG board with an OFPMC-appointed chair. The amendments are up for public comment until July 31.

Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal dismissed the OPVG’s directors in March when an impasse to a new contract between tomato growers and the main processors in the province could not be broken.

Leal then appointed former ag minister Elmer Buchanan as a trustee to assume the association’s power to negotiate contracts with processors for processing tomatoes for 2017.

Under the commission’s proposal as posted June 15, the first new OPVG board wouldn’t be formed until this fall. Four board members would be elected at that time for two-year terms, and would sit with four commission-appointed members holding one-year terms.

In 2018, the commission said, the terms of the four appointed members would end and their replacements would be elected for two-year terms, and the four members elected in 2017 would continue their terms for their second year.

“At the election in 2018, all board positions, with the exception of the appointed chair, would be transitioned to elected positions,” the commission said.

The eight members would eventually be elected from the OPVG’s three existing district committees, with four members coming from District 1 and two from each of Districts 2 and 3. The board would need a majority of members present to hold votes, and the chair would cast a tie-breaking vote if need be.

Instead of only being able to elect members to the district vegetable growers’ committees, growers would be able to elect anyone from their district directly to the board through an anonymous election process, the commission proposes.

Members would serve two-year terms, staggered so half of the board members would be elected each year, with the other half elected in the following year.

The new OPVG chair would be appointed by the commission for an initial term of two years and eligible for reappointment, up to a total term limit of 10 years. The amendments also lay out new limits on consecutive terms of service and lifetime service for board members.

The Processing Vegetable Growers’ Alliance, a grower group formed after the OPVG board was dismissed, said Thursday in a letter it has “very serious concerns about the proposed amendments that would effectively allow the government to take control of the OPVG board for another year.”

The OPVG, the PVGA said, “currently has no expert advisory staff or board, and is operated by a commission-appointed trustee.”

The PVGA said the commission’s proposed amendments “will put the voice of the processing growers at a minority, with government appointees making up the majority of the OPVG board until the end of 2018.”

The processing vegetable sector, the PVGA said, is “best served by the grassroots growers who produce the 14 different processing vegetables grown in Ontario. And a fully elected grower board is in the best position to accurately and adequately represent our sector.”

The PVGA, describing the province’s processing vegetable growers as having been “silenced” for almost four months, urged growers to comment on the proposed amendments before the deadline.

The alliance said its goal is “to restore a fully elected OPVG board with the authority to negotiate prices, terms, conditions and contracts for Ontario’s processing vegetable growers.” — AGCanada.com Network

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The board of directors of the marketing board has been dismissed until new elections are held, as expected by the end of 2017.

“I have been closely monitoring the 2017 contract negotiations between Ontario’s tomato growers and processors and was recently informed by growers, processors and the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission (OFPMC) that negotiations have reached an impasse, jeopardizing this year’s crop season,” provincial Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal said.

“Risking this year’s tomato crop, and the thousands of jobs that support it, is something I am not prepared to do.”

Former Ontario agriculture minister Elmer Buchanan is the trustee and he will assume the powers of the board to negotiate a contract for the 2017 growing season.

Buchanan was, until recently, vice-chair of the OFMPC, the arm’s-length body that regulates agriculture organizations and marketing boards in the province.

He will hold the powers of the board until new board elections are held.

The former chair of the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers (OPVG) board is calling for a quick new vote for a new board of directors.

Francis Dobbelaar, who farms near Wallaceburg, about 40 km south of Sarnia, said the board is democratically elected, and he believes it had the support of growers.

However, he expects Buchanan will appoint negotiators for processing tomato contracts.

“For all the wrong reasons the government is stepping in to make this decision. Obviously rural Ontario is not any concern and this is the tip of the iceberg.

“So much damage can be done to the industry in the short term. There will be contracts signed and all will be signed under duress,” he said, referring to the fact that farmers will have to negotiate independently with processors and will already have inputs and equipment bought for 2017 and beyond.

The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Processors Association (OFVPA), meanwhile, hailed Leal’s move in a separate statement Friday.

“We look forward to working jointly with the OPVG, their appointed trustee, and our grower partners in putting together the details for this progressive move,” OFPVA president Steve Lamoure said.

Don Epp, OFVPA’s executive director, described the move as “a great opportunity to increase employment, economic investment, and grower tonnage. Working together truly works.”

The impasse is not surprising, as Leal quashed an OFPMC attempt to change the way that processing tomato contracts are negotiated, after an outcry from growers about the loss of power and the need for more consultation.

Contracts for all processing tomato growers are currently negotiated by the marketing board. That gave farmers the power to collectively bargain for price and conditions. If there’s no agreement, both sides submit a proposal to an arbitrator who makes one submitted price, or the other.

Processors have been looking to be able to negotiate directly with farmers, and the proposed OFPMC regulation would have given them that, by making the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers a producer association without negotiating powers.

The processors issued a statement early in 2017 in which they said that without regulatory changes they would not be negotiating contracts for the 2017 growing season.

In August, Minister Leal put a halt to the OFPMC process citing the need for greater study and industry consultation before making such a significant change in how tomatoes are marketed in the province.

In a statement Friday he said his actions remain within the spirit of his directive in August to “develop a regulatory framework to achieve reform for the 2018 growing season and beyond.”

Dobbelaar said the OPVG had a report by independent consultant John Groenewegen, ready to be released next Wednesday, showing the competitiveness of the industry. Government already had seen that report. Dobbelaar didn’t know what would happen to the report now that a trustee is running the board.

The board had already negotiated contracts for processing crops such as sweet corn, carrots, onions and cucumbers for 2017, Dobbelaar said. It was negotiating with Sunbrite and ConAgra, when the two processors didn’t show up for a final day of negotiations on March 1.

“It signified there was a political change,” he said.

Highbury Canco (HCC) has been the largest push behind changes, Dobbelaar said. HCC was seen as the saviour of the former Heinz tomato processing plant in Leamington, but has significantly cut wages and costs and now Dobbelaar said it is going after the price it pays to farmers.

“One particular company, HCC, didn’t like the rules, so they tipped the tables in their favour,” he said.

The way the processing vegetable marketing board has been treated should be a warning to other agriculture boards, he said.

He also blames the high cost of doing business in Ontario, especially electricity costs, as a reason for processors to push the need for savings down to farmers.

“We had a good system, but the political optics weren’t just proper,” he said. “When the dust clears and the real truth comes out, the government will have made a big mistake.”

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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