The Rural Voice, 1982-02, Page 7equipment can be used for beans.
Secondly, kidney beans are hardy, at
least hardier than whites.
"I know they're tough,' says Brown,
"because I had thirty-five acres pulled
and on the ground for three weeks and
there was water in the field. I was able to
turn them once and when we took a
sample they were A-1. White beans
wouldn't have taken that. This year I'll
,all what I can combine in a day
because I figured I'd lost them. They had a
twenty-two per cent moisture rating
(eighteen per cent is ideal) so that wasn't
too bad."
It's nice that Brown has had some
success with kidney beans because he
refuses to grow whites because of their
regulation by the Ontario Bean Producers
BOB ALLAN
Marketing Board. He doesn't agree with a
fee schedule that calls for interim and final
payments to the grower six and thirteen
months after an initial partial payment at
harvest time. Coloured beans (which
include kidneys) do not come under the
jurisdiction of the OBPMB and Brown
doubts there will ever be sufficient
numbers grown in Ontario to warrant an
agency board.
Just where Bob Allan stands on the
question of the white bean board should
be fairly apparent. The R.R. 1, Brucefield
producer is past chairman and current
vice-chairman of the OBPMB. But the
concedes "the top five or ten per cent" of
Ontario growers "might make more
money on their own." The board, then, is
in place to help the majority of producers.
The Ray Browns can get along quite nicely
without it.
"The advantage of a board is that you
don't have to know anything about
marketing your commodity to get a
reasonably good return for it," says Bob
Forest, a research agronomist at Centralia
College of Agricultural Technology.
"Farmers who are operating on a lot of
borrowed capital are forced to market a
good portion of that crop at harvest time
and that's usually when the price is at it's
most distressing level," says Forest.
"The reason that the bean board is there
is because too many farmers were
operating on borrowed capital and had to
liquidate at least a portion of their crop at
harvest time. The dealers were taking
advantage of that and the prices were just
dismal. So, the farmers got together
and brought in a marketing board and
now they get an initial payment on their
whole crop as soon as they deliver it.
"The crop goes into the possession of
the marketing board and the marketing
board then assists the dealer organization
in marketing these beans. The board
takes possession of the crop but it stays in
the facilities of the dealers and either the
dealer or the board will drum up markets
for those dealers, then buy the beans
from the board and sell them to their
markets overseas. After the initial pay-
ment, the farmer will get an interim
payment, usually in the early spring of the
following year and then perhaps a final
payment in the fall.
"The advantage, I guess," says
Forest, "is that every farmer gets the
same price for his crop. You don't have to
know anything about marketing; the
marketing board plans the marketing
strategy and sets prices, and so on, from
you. All you have to do is grow them, and
you can get some of your money right at
harvest time, without sacrificing the price
per unit that you are getting for the crop.
The disadvantage is that your money. at
(east a portion of your money, no matter
how smart a marketing person you are, is
tied up by the marketing board for
perhaps up to a year. And they don't pay
you interest."
Forest believes such a board stifles the
entreoreneural skills of some farmers. He
says "That's why there is so much interest
in kidney beans. There is no board in
position and the dealers are offering
contracts at fairly attractive prices (to
kidney bean growers). Last spring you
could sign a contract for anywhere
between twenty-eight dollars and thirty-
five dollars a hundredweight for kidney
beans and you knew that as soon as you
took your beans to the elevator in the fall
you would get your contract price # right
then and there."
Bob Allan says the board knows many
farmers opt for kidney beans "because
O
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THE RURAL VOICE/FEBRUARY 1982 PG 5