The Rural Voice, 2001-12, Page 18Kia of Owen Sound
9,t'a caeca time
eo.eevane diad a
tett-made cafc
519-371-4447
Hwy. 26 East
(across from Montana's)
WE'RE
MAKING
A LIST..,
There's no better
time of the year to
say thanks and
wish you all a
joyous season.
From the staff at
Illti■i■ .
BRUCE
TRACTOR
iiimu .. -
& LAWN CARE LTD.
® JOHN DEERE
R.R. 4, WALKERTON
519-881-2231
1-800-265-3883
14 THE RURAL VOICE
says now. Her research has cost close
to $1,000 in phone bills and
payments for documents from
Environment Canada, money that the
others involved in the protest, and
their supporters, happily picked up
the tab for, she says. She had never
expected to be reimbursed.
The farmers' first question was
why the computer simulation
could be so different from the
reality of their crops. Their first eye-
opener was the realization that the
Environment Canada Paisley weather
station, upon which Agricorp said it
based its 30 -year weather averages,
had been closed in October 1992.
On January 28, 2000,
representatives of the group met with
Agricorp officials in Walkerton and
made them aware of this discrepancy.
Officials, Ellicott says, stated
information from Port Elgin had be
used to replace the information from
Paisley. Neither Port Elgin or Tara
which officials later said they used,
run as most of these stations are by
volunteer weather -keepers, recorded
the hours of sunshine that had been
kept by the Paisley station.
Eventually Agricorp officials said
they used sunshine data from the
Wiarton weather station.
Given the new information.
Agricorp officials promised to rerun
the simulation using the new data.
They agreed that if the new
simulation showed people who
received no payment should have,
they would issue cheques. If people
had received payment and shouldn't
under the new simulation, they
wouldn't attempt to clawback these
payments.
As far as she knows, Ellicott is the
only one of the group who had her
simulation rerun. Her hope that this
would more accurately reflect her
actual crop was dashed when the new
simulation said she should have had
almost 90 per cent of her normal
crop, actually a five per cent increase
over the original estimate.
"We all went 'This is ludicrous',"
Ellicott remembers. "We realized we
had to go further."
The group's education about the
vagaries of the crop insurance system
deepened.
"We gradually began to find more
and more inaccurate information was
used in evaluation," Ellicott says.
They learned, for instance, that
forage yields in southern Ontario are
based on three cuts of hay, with the
first cut valued at 60 per cent of the
crop, the second, 25 per cent and the
third cut, 15 per cent. But the Grey -
Bruce farmers argued that only dairy
farmers generally try to take off three
cuts of hay.
The simulation also depends on
results from co-operator farmers,
farmers who volunteer to report their
actual crop yields, acreages and other
details. In the computer simulation
these results make up 65 per cent of
the weight of the statistics while the
individual farmer's statistics make up
just 35 per cent. Though identity of
these co-operator farmers is protected
by Agricorp, the group eventually
found out who they were. Most of
those co-operating on forage crops
were dairy farmers.
The simulation for southern
Ontario is also based on a forage mix
of 65 per cent alfalfa, 35 per cent
timothy, not the species that
predominate in the Grey -Bruce area.
In addition, they became
disenchanted about the accuracy of
the information gathered from the co-
operator farmers on which so much
weight was given in the computer
simulation. In a survey of co-operator
farmers, the committee found out
none had ever had their acreages
accurately checked. Acreages were
only estimated. It's a problem that
was highlighted in a report by the
province's Auditor General who
criticized Agricorp for its methods
and said fields must be measured, she
says.
But testifying at the tribunal
hearing, an Agricorp official
said "random and directed"
audits were carried out in 1999 to
ensure that coverage levels were
accurate and acreage measurements
were taken at that time. He said he
generally found that adjustments
were necessary for about 11-20 per
cent of audited farms.
The group also discovered that
Agricorp clients had been provided
with two different types of rain gauge
which, when tested side by side by
Smith, showed an eight per cent
variation in rain measurement. Since
rainfall measurements kept by co-
operator farmers affected the
simulation for their neighbours,
i