Alberta Sugar Beet Growers, Potato Growers of Alberta, Alberta Seed Growers and the Alberta Beekeepers have joined the four founding members, the wheat, barley, canola and pulse commissions.

The idea behind the 2015 creation of Team Alberta is “that working together to advocate for farmers on issues related to policy and government relations was an effective way to access government with a single voice,” said a recent Alberta Wheat blog.

The alliance now has a full-time government relations and policy manager, along with its own website teamalbertacrops.com that outlines policies and issues of concern for the eight farm groups.

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On October 13 Team Alberta issued a memo to producers outlining how it “continues to press the provincial government to acknowledge the ongoing situation and find solutions to protect farmers against the mounting risks threatening the stability and competitiveness of Alberta’s crop sector.”

“When we were in the height of the heat dome and drought back in July, we started having meetings with the Ministry of Agriculture and Agri-Forestry and Agriculture Financial Services Corporation,” Tom Steve, general manager of the Alberta Barley and Alberta Wheat Commissions, said in an interview.

Since then, Team Alberta has been having regular biweekly calls with the ministry and AFSC to discuss concerns for the cropping sector, but nothing has come of them, Steve said.

“I would say that overall, we’re a little concerned that there isn’t really any programming contemplated for this year that would help offset the impact of the drought on grain farmers.

“Our concern is that it doesn’t seem that the impact of the worst drought in 20 years is being fully acknowledged by the province. We’re being told existing programming is what will be used to deal with the impact of these dry conditions. We just know that there are a number of mitigating circumstances and pressures that are coming to bear on farmers.”

Crop insurance only

“We’ve been having that same conversation with them all summer,” said Tara Sawyer, chair of the Alberta Barley Commission. “At the end of the day, the message we were getting from (the government) was, ‘you’ve got crop insurance. That’s what you guys are going to have to work with, because we have no funds for you,’” she said.

Crop insurance premiums were reduced by 20 per cent, but crop insurance is not made to cover large-scale disasters, said Steve.

“We are still working with the government, and they said there’s nothing coming for the crop sector, and I find that disappointing. We know the situation is going to continue. Are people going to have resources for next year’s crop year and the expenses that come from that? It’s not good enough.”

Sawyer said Team Alberta has been asking for changes to the existing business risk management programs, as well as flexibility on their responses and expediting crop insurance payments.

“We’ve been asking for them to do adjustments on the cap on the variable-price benefit, because then payouts would be more reflective on our current market prices. We’re not getting anywhere with that.”

Sawyer said Team Alberta is asking for changes to AgriStability to make the program more responsible, equitable and predictable during this disaster year.

“This is one of the worst drought and extreme weather patterns that we’ve had. They gave the livestock sector $340 million and they responded to them, and that’s great. They have nothing for the crop sector — no new programming, no acknowledgment that we’re having a similar impact,” said Sawyer, who farms at Acme.

Concern for next year

Steve said there are a number of “red flags” coming up in 2022.

Glyphosate prices are “through the roof,” and fertilizer prices and supply are unstable. Fuel costs are volatile and extremely high right now. The cost and availability of seed can be an issue, particularly for wheat and barley.

Alberta Pulse Growers Commission chair Robert Semeniuk also said his concerns are for cash flow over the winter and buying inputs for next spring.

“Our costs are sunk. They’re sunk in the spring. We’ve paid those expenses, no matter what, up front. There’s no way to mitigate that halfway through the season. In our case, our concerns are for next year. Some places in the province had no crop, and we’re looking at very high input costs for next year. I don’t know how they are going to do it,” said Semeniuk, who farms at Smoky Lake.

There’s also the possibility that 2022 could be another drought year.

“There is a lot that we’re being hit with this year. There’s some serious lost income. I’m disappointed with the lack of response from our government,” said Sawyer.

Team Alberta has posted its memo to farmers on its website www.teamalbertacrops.com.

It says that while it is pressing the province for more aid, in the meantime farmers are encouraged to submit their Harvest Production Reports to AFSC as soon as possible to expedite crop insurance payouts.

Sawyer said Team Alberta knows it’s accountable to producers, and wants producers to know it has been advocating for them.

“We understand the situation everybody is in, and we want to make sure they know that,” she said.

“We’re really stressing to the government that we need to be cognizant of what happened, but also the circumstances we might have to deal with in 2022,” said Steve.

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The quartet — which collectively has 20,000 members — came together four years ago to form Team Alberta when the urban-centric NDP came to power.

“We found it easier to talk to the new people who wanted information on agriculture if we were doing it as a united front,” said Alberta Pulse chair Don Shepert, a crops and cattle producer who farms near St. Paul.

“To put together a group and effort that is collaborative, that is a good thing.”

Collaboration between policy staff from his organization and those from Alberta Barley, Alberta Wheat and Alberta Pulse Growers has increased since then. Recently, the four groups launched a joint website teamalbertacrops.com.

“The model of the four commissions working together has been working for farmers,” said Shannon Sereda, government relations and policy manager for Alberta Wheat and Alberta Barley. “It is a great amplification of the messages that we often share among commodities related to policy issues.

“It’s also a way to maximize resources as a commission so we aren’t replicating a lot of the same activities, particularly on the policy and government files.”

The website allows producers, government officials and media to find joint policy information quickly and easily, she said.

“It’s a way for farmers and government officials to access what is happening in the policy sector and what issues we see as being a priority based on the work that we do with each of our commissions,” said Sereda.

“We try to communicate but because we’re not a single entity, this will help us communicate better to farmers on what we’re up to as a team, and act as a resource for government, media and others.”

It’s also a recognition their members grow more than one commodity, and the four groups often take the same position on major issues.

For example, they all view the carbon tax as a threat to farmers’ global competitiveness and want governments to recognize the gains made in environmental stewardship such as sequestering carbon through reduced tillage and lowering greenhouse gas emissions through adoption of precision agriculture, increased nitrogen-use efficiency and improvements in diesel engine combustion.

For the recent federal election, Team Alberta put out a brief two-page primer on its four top asks for the new government: Improved market access; science-based regulations on crop protection products; better access to innovation and new technologies; and the need to ‘modernize’ business risk management programs.

But there are a host of issues that affect their members, so policy staff meet monthly to discuss priorities and issues they align on. The general managers from the commissions also meet on a semi-regular basis and the four groups recently signed a memorandum of understanding “that helps to officiate our relationship,” said Sereda.

However, that doesn’t mean the groups are intending to merge.

“We are still bound to the Marketing of Agricultural Products Act and (accompanying) regulations — each of us has to respond to our own regulations,” said Sereda. “We haven’t established ourselves as a single entity. There is nothing formalizing our relationship between common understanding and an agreement to work together.”

That includes occasional breakfast meetings for farmers (the most recent was at Agri-Trade) where the groups bring in a speaker focusing on a policy issue.

Such events, the regular policy meetings, and the new website are all ways to bring the groups together in a common-sense fashion, said Shepert.

“As chairs, we talk a little more, all our directors know each other,” he said. “There’s good interaction and dialogue that goes on between the commissions.”

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Its findings will provide information for farmers regarding efficiencies; implementation or expansion of grain conditioning systems; and for advocacy on programs and policies related to on-farm grain conditioning.

Participants will work with experts to install necessary measuring implements, perform data readings, and manual logging over three years. Along with data from the energy-use monitor, they will receive individualized recommendations on reducing costs.

For more info or to sign up, contact Shannon Sereda at 403-219-6263 or ssereda@albertawheatbarley.com.

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The announcement from provincial Agriculture Minister Oneil Carlier follows a conference call with officials from Agriculture Financial Services Corp. (AFSC) and from the province’s wheat, barley, canola and pulse grower commissions.

“Balancing the need to expedite crop insurance claims with protecting producers’ hard-earned premium payments is important to me,” Carlier said in a statement following the call.

“That’s why I’ve asked (AFSC) to streamline inspection procedures to assist insured producers in completing planned harvests. I’ve also asked that the agency be prepared to move quickly if conditions don’t improve.”

The streamlined processes would allow crop inspectors to make quicker decisions, the commissions said in a joint “Team Alberta” statement, such as making determinations on “quality downgrades caused by mice excreta.”

The provincial and federal government are in talks about changes to the Wildlife Compensation program to accommodate that particular issue in the future, the commissions said.

Carlier said he also asked AFSC to “provide me, as soon as possible, with a fulsome assessment of the current situation and with a plan to expedite crop insurance assessments.”

The commissions had asked the province allow farmers to “dispose of last year’s crop as they see fit without affecting their insurance coverage, to minimize further issues ahead of spring seeding.”

Seeding has already been delayed in “many” parts of the province due to heavy snow, the commissions said, adding that about one million unharvested acres remain from last fall.

“We must move away from field-to-field assessment and begin geographic write-offs in order to begin working on this year’s crop,” Jason Lenz, a grower at Bentley, Alta. and chair of Alberta Barley, said in the commissions’ statement. “There’s simply too much ground to cover and not enough time.”

Farmers now face a “near-impossible” task, the commissions said, waiting for snow to melt and land to dry out, harvesting last year’s crop, repairing and preparing fields and seeding their 2017 crops, “all within the next six weeks.”

“With killing frosts beginning by mid-September in north-central Alberta and the Peace region, farmers are now on an extraordinarily tight timeline,” said Kevin Bender, vice-chair of Alberta Wheat Commission and also a grower near Bentley. “We must be given freedom to operate to avoid another disaster this fall.”

“Every passing day is one step closer to a widespread disaster if farmers are not allowed to seed until they meet with one of the AFSC’s 130 crop inspectors,” the commission said, calling for “expedited” insurance payouts for farmers in the hardest-hit areas. — AGCanada.com Network

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