The Rural Voice, 1990-08, Page 22POLITICS
AND
PRODUCTION:
THE
VEGETABLE
BUSINESS
Keith and Sandy Strang
are vegetable growers in
the Hensall area. They
are part of an industry
that faces big challenges
from changing
consumer preferences
and government
agricultural policy.
Although vegetable growing in
midwestern Ontario is not tradition-
ally regarded as a big income earner
in a region dominated by livestock
and grain crops, its small acreage does
have a high value, producing a sub-
stantial income for a large number of
farmers. While only about 200,000
acres in total in the province were
planted in vegetables in 1988, ac-
cording to the latest statistics, it meant
a whopping $419 million in farmers'
pocketbooks.
With a further $427 million worth
of fresh and processed vegetables
imported into the province every year,
on the surface it looks like there's
tremendous room for Ontario farmers
to expand production. But to the con-
trary, the province's vegetable growers
are running scared and are hoping to
just hold on to what they have. Any
change in the economic climate can
quickly bring some bad chills to an
industry that already faces big chal-
lenges from the weather, changing
consumer preferences, and govern-
ment agricultural policy.
Ontario's vegetable growers,
particularly those in the processing
area have been among the first of
Canada's food producers to face the
new reality of competing head-on
under the new U.S. - Canada free trade
agreement. It's making for some
tough bargaining between producers
and processors, says Keith Strang of
the Hensall area, a director for the
past three years on the Ontario Vege-
table Growers Marketing Board.
Keith, along with his brother Gord,
farms about 750 acres in Usborne
Township in the southern part of
Huron County of which 100 acres are
planted to processing peas and sweet
corn under contract to Nabisco's can-
ning plant in Exeter. They also grow
200 acres of grain corn, and 160 acres
of winter wheat. As well, they are
shareholders in First Line Seeds, and
are select seed growers. The select
stands include 150 acres of Natto San
soybeans, an edible soy that will even-
tually end up on the dinner plates of
Japanese consumers.
"We have 140 acres planted in
white beans including Centralia,
Griffin, and a new upright bean called
Shetland," says Keith. Growing
premium seed can bring in extra in-
come, but it takes more of a commit-
ment and patience from the grower.
"It's a lot of fussing around, but it
can pay off," he adds.
When he's not busy on the tractor
or chasing all over the province on
Vegetable Board business, Keith
keeps busy custom feeding 300 beef
cattle in his modern, feedlot oper-
ation, constructed back in the opti-
mistic days of the 1970s when high
cattle prices and eager bankers lured
a lot of Ontario farmers into investing
heavily into the beef feedlot industry.
"The margins in the beef business
in Ontario are just too thin," says
Strang, a former president of the
Huron Cattlemen's Association. He
thinks Ontario feeders have also been
at an unfair disadvantage with the
Western provinces, whose govern-
ments have made an aggressive effort
to lure the cattle feeding business
their way.
Keith is heavily involved with the
Ontario Vegetable Growers Market-
ing Board (OVGMB), one of the
oldest marketing boards in the pro-
vince. It was formed in 1946 through
a consolidation of previously estab-
lished marketing plans for tomatoes,
peas, corn, and green and wax beans.
Over the years, a host of other vege-
table growers have voted to join, and
the board now includes beet, carrot,
cabbage, pumpkin, squash, lima
bean, cucumber, and cauliflower pro-
ducers, with the pepper growers the
latest to join in 1977.
The Board, like all marketing
boards in the province, is sanctioned
under the Farm Products Marketing
Act, which is administered by the
Farm Products Marketing Com-
mission, a division of the Ontario
Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
The Commission acts in a watchdog
role to monitor and supervise all com-
modity marketing boards. In order to
give an impartial appeal mechanism
to anyone who feels wronged by any
marketing board decision, the Farm
Products Appeal Tribunal was estab-
lished in 1979 by the Ontario gov-
ernment to hear appeals.
Although its main mandate is to
negotiate prices and terms of contracts
for the 12 processing vegetable crops,
18 THE RURAL VOICE