The Rural Voice, 1982-02, Page 5Merits, problems and potential of
Beans
by Dean Robinson
There are those who will tell you that a good bean farmer is also
good at the green -felt tables in Las Vegas.
Growing beans in Ontario is thought to be a risky business and
the producers who are good at it are considered skilful gamblers.
Indeed, it takes a good bean producer to be able to afford time at
those tables in Vegas.
What makes it all so daring is our short growing season, and
unpredictable weather, in particular a wet fall. Few farmers, bean
growers or not, will forget the soggy disaster of 1977, when
thousands of acres of whites rotted into the southwestern Ontario
winter.
Still farmers, by nature, are gamblers and in general, the bean
business in Huron, Perth and Middlesex Counties is flourishing.
The 1980 crop year (for whites) was the best on record. And Bob
Allan, of R.R. 1 Brucefield, vice-chairman of the Ontario Bean
Producers Marketing Board, says the 1981 harvest will bring even
higher returns.
That's good news for the 3,000 Ontario growers who, by 1980
figures, planted 95,000 acres of whites. Eighty per cent of that
acreage was in Huron (35,000), Perth (26,000) and Middlesex
(15,000).
As significant as those numbers are for this side of Lake Huron,
they are considerably smaller than their counterparts on the other
side, where Michigan is still the No. 1 producer of white beans.
Ontario whites are used almost entirely for human consump-
tion. Most of them are sold to the canning trade, and the
remainder in the dry pack market for consumption as homemade
baked beans.
While there has always been an export market for them, the
domestic consumption of whites has been declining both in
absolute quantities and in consumption per capita. There are a
number of reasons cited for the decline, among them fast food
outlets and an increasing number of meals eaten away from the
home, and the traditionally -perceived low quality food image of
beans.
Normally, the United Kingdom buys about eighty per cent of
Ontario's white beans. But what they viewed as high prices kept
U.K. buyers away from the 1980 crop. So OBPMB officials had to
look elsewhere for markets and they found them in Cuba, Iraq,
Saudi Arabia and Bulgaria. There were others but those were the
big four. They were unconventional markets, to be sure, but then
so were the cheques to the growers.
This is not to say that had those customers not been found the
year would have been a write-off. Rather, if those customers had
not been found, or declined to ante up the asking price, that asking
price would have been lowered and the crop would have sold to
somebody. Undoubtedly, the U.K. would have moved back to the
bargaining table at some stage of price slashing,
That's the way it goes in the marketing of Ontario white beans.
The demand is there acid the price is generally good. But just who
pays the price can vary from year to year.
Bob Forest, a research agronomist at the Centralia College of
Agriculture Technology, says the whites are "a riskier crop to
grow because of the gosh awful weather we have in September but
it's that risk that helps put the prices where they are." He calls it a
"positive price picture" and he says that's why white beans are
becoming a more popular commodity.
Forest says there is a growing white bean industry in Manitoba,
and in North and South Dakota and Wisconsin. "Ten years ago
there was none out there; now they're growing thousands of
acres." He thinks such expansion will serve to "sharpen up" the
growers around Lake Huron. He also believes it might prompt the
production of beans in areas of Ontario which thus far have not
considered them a viable crop.
Beans, in their own right, are a tempting crop for many farmers,
particularly those in or close to the counties of Huron, Middlesex
and Perth. What makes them more attractive for the 1982 crop
year is the 1981 price for corn.
Says Forest, "There's not going to be any money in $2.50 or $3
(per bushel) corn, and that's what this year's (1981s) prices look
like. The farmer with any smarts is going to be looking at
alternatives. Beans are a cheaper crop to grow and the potential
for a good return is certainly much more real than it is with corn
right now, though that could change in a year's time."
"The biggest concern with beans is the weather," says Bob
Allan, "but we can't do anything about it. That's why if you're
going to grow them you've got to be dedicated. You've got to be
prepared to work twenty-four hours a day if you have to to get
them off. You don't stop for weddings or anything else. They sal,
'Don't grow more beans than you can harvest in three days.'
Allan, who chaired the OBPMB for seven years and is now
working his way through the executive for a second time, has a
third of his three hundred acres of cash crops in white beans. He
says the beans require expensive, specialized equipment, and a
crop must be large enough to support that kind of expenditure. It
must be an "economic unit."
He also says a bean farmer must pay particular attention to crop
rotation or the yields will fall off. Twenty years ago, says Allan,
Kent County was the bean capital of Ontario. A decade later the
title was claimed by south and central Huron, as ozone gas
(combination of sunlight and exhaust from internal combustion
engines) caused excessive bronzing in Kent. Now, north Huron is
considered the best growing area. It has more humus and better
soil structure.
But whites are only part of the Ontario bean story. There is also
a 'coloured' side, that includes kidney beans. Their merits.
problems and potential are discussed in a related story in this
issue of the Rural Voice.
THE RURAL VOICE/ FEBRUARY 1982 PG. 3