Ontario: government replaces OPVG board

12/04/2017

François-Xavier Branthôme

Canada,

North America

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Ontario: government replaces OPVG board

“…a very unstable situation for growers” says former OPVG vice president

In early March, the Ontario government sacked the farmers on the board of the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers Association, which negotiates annual vegetable prices with food processors, replacing them with a former politician, amid talks on the price of this year’s tomato crop.
Elmer Buchanan, who had to resign from the Ontario Farm Products' Marketing Commission (FPMC) and is a former agriculture minister, is now in charge of negotiating 2017 contracts with processors, appointed by the Liberal government’s agriculture minister. OPVG Board members were informed by the deputy minister they were fired. Talks were at an impasse, said Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Jeff Leal, and this year’s tomato crop was at risk, which is why he stepped in.
A new board is set to be elected in the fall.

The move came after the province’s vegetable-processing companies hit farmers in December with a wave of unprecedented attacks, accusing them of everything from “bargaining in bad faith to lying”.
Processors have also demanded an end to the negotiating powers of the growers’ board. Under the umbrella of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Processors Association (OFVPA), processors announced they would be cutting contracts to buy Ontario produce, resulting in millions of dollars in lost production. Processors called the London Ontario based growers group, a marketing board elected by farmers, a “cartel”.

New growers association voted in to replace dissolved OPGV board

Although the Ontario government dissolved the OPVG board, growers refuse to not have their own voice.
Approximately 150 growers attended a meeting on 6 March where Elmer Buchanan, the newly appointed trustee of the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers (OPVG) board, outlined how the process will work in order to move forward.
Although Buchanan invited farmers who grow the various commodities represented by the OPVG to sit at the bargaining table, after the meeting a vote was taken to create a new growers’ association to be their voice. Tomato grower Francis Dobbelaar, who is the elected chair of OPVG, said the desire by growers to create this association “shows it's more about having people they trust represent them.” Dobbelaar said the growers association is willing to work with Buchanan, the FPMC and the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Jeff Leal, adding that growers “feel this crisis was created artificially” by Leamington-based processor Highbury Canco to precipitate these events, adding that the company did not show up to the bargaining table to discuss tomato prices.
During the meeting, Buchanan explained that the “threat on the table” was that some processors were planning to pull thousands of tonnes of tomatoes out of production.
He added that processors want to discuss other issues besides money while at the bargaining table, but the former OPGV board only wanted to deal with prices.
“That's a complete contrived fallacy,” Dobbelaar said, reminding that the OPVG has been very innovative and flexible, and very competitive in their pricing models.
Dobbelaar said it was the OPVG board that began a five-year memorandum of understanding in 2013, which created a price discount for processors so they could use that extra money to get matching government funds to put in new equipment.
He added that the OPVG has also led the charge on research.

Latest news: see also our article on the agreement reached mid-March for the 2017 growing season.

Appendices/Annexes
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