A lot has happened since the chicken and egg dance at which time I was so optimistic that something good was going to happen on the Marketing Board front. I have been busy with the normal spring activities and feel good about farming. The potatoes are planted, the raspberries pruned, the broccoli and some of the onions are seeded for transplanting and the green onion, dill and cilantro have germinated. This means that I am almost ready for another season of crop production.
While I was planting the potatoes between the raspberry rows I could not help but note the level of weed growth that was now in the raspberry rows. Controlling the weeds in the raspberries was a major winter and spring job that my chickens used to do and it is at this time of year that I miss them the most. It has been a struggle making it through the winter in the area of cash flow management without the income from the eggs that they produce. My pigs, broilers and winter raspberry sales seem to keep me just above the high water line.
I have been following the development of the issue of organics in marketing boards since the chicken and egg dance and I am not all that pleased with what I see. The principles outlined in the Leroux Report are all good. These principles include;
a. Separate allocation of quota for organic quota
b. No charge for organic quota
c. Three tier phase in of new specialty product quota (including organic)
d. No windfall for new producers based on quota values and sale
e. 5% claw back of any quota sales to go to a pool for new growers
f. Fee and levy structure based on value to the producer being levied
g. Ability of any niche producer to grow at the rate that market grows.
h. No poaching of market share by large farms on the market developed by small farms
i. Increased levels of exemption for producers of specialty product.
These are all principles that I can agree with and I strongly applauded the Hon. Minister of Agriculture and George Leroux for coming to these conclusions and undertaking to implement them. However, the implementation process has appeared to have degenerated into a negotiation process. The marketing boards have responded with their usual we have the power to do what ever we want and have even told members of the implementation committee to sit down and shut up. Clearly it cannot be left up to the marketing boards to implement policies that would accommodate any new markets. Especially those such as organic which wish to effect the way agriculture is practiced in this country.
On the other side we have the recent producers of organic product (some who were encouraged to produce in order to put Olera Farms out of business). These producers smell the opportunity of a windfall and are lobbying hard for it. They recognize that the rules can be written in such a way that it would put ¾ of a million dollars in their pockets over night. These same people did nothing to support the legal battle over Olera Farms nor did they contribute to the lobbying effort to have effective change brought into the marketing board sector.
I don't wish to condemn all the organic growers to this culture of greed that the marketing board system encourages. There are those that invested heavily in the development of the organic sector. The risks that we took to reach out to markets that were not proven was greater than any risk that those lobbying for a windfall would ever be willing to take. There are those that deserve to be rewarded for the risks they took and investment they made and I include Olera Farms in this group. However, as the implementation process has ground on, the voice of the little organic farmer seems to be lost to those that wish to capitalize on our demise. In the process there seems to be no voice for the consumer and the small-scale organic farmer.
I urge George Leroux and John vanDongen to get back on track and implement the fundamental principles of the Leroux report. Cut out the background noise that is made by the greedy self-interest of individual producers and the marketing boards. Open the marketing board system to new blood. Create the ability to have flexibility in the development of emerging markets. Curtail the culture of corruption and greed that in ingrained in the marketing board structure.
I don't normally comment on the reporting in the farm industry newspapers which continue give a biased slant to conventional agriculture however the Agri Digest of April 2005 had a head line that read "US Farmers Have Adopted Supply Management. The article was referring to a group of farms in Wisconsin that work in a co-operative called Organic Valley Family of Farms. These farms work together voluntarily to supply the ever-growing organic market in the US. They voluntarily control their supply to keep prices stable. This is the same system we used in BC to bring eggs to the BC market place prior to 2001 when the Egg Marketing Board dramatically increased the supply of organic eggs to coincide with its attempts to shut Olera Farms down. At the time Olera Farms was working with 6 other farms to supply the local markets. Now BC imports a lot of its organic eggs while local producers find it hard to market their eggs. The voluntary co-operative approach to supply management seems to work much better than the heavy-handed government regulated approach that is applied in BC.
This same Agri Digest reported “One in Five Farm Workers Sick From Pesticides”. The report comes from research done in Washington State where over 20% of the employees handling pesticides get sick from them. The Department of Labor and Industries determine that the problem is "caused by not wearing proper protective gear, not following handling guidelines, improper training of employees, the language barrier (many farm workers are Mexican and often they are unable to read labels, even in their own language)." However Carol Dansereau of the Farm Worker Pesticide Project suggests that the more appropriate action would be to phase out these highly toxic pesticides. How about going organic.
I urge the consumer and interested public to once again look out for your interests and write the Minister of Agriculture one more time to say that the organic market from the producer to yourself be given the freedom to develop in a truly organic way.
Fred Reid
PS. I need my chickens back to help me weed my raspberries.
