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The Huron Expositor, 1976-07-01, Page 18LET US MAKE YOUR ' OLD 'FURNITURE BETTER THAN NEW ! For a free estimate and a look at our newest samples of materials — CALL COOK. UPHOLSTERY Ph. 523-4272. R. Cook, Prop. Blyth, Ont. WE HAVE FREE PICK-UP AND DELIVERY SERVICE F "Pot Your Uphidstering Moods in Ow /foods" Crop Researchers Says Every Dollar Spent On Weed Control Results in $5,60 Savings! AGRICULTURAL AIRCRAFT SPRAYING Provides Many More Advantages . . . *Crops may be sprayed at the most advantageous time *There is no soil compaction *There is. no damage to the grain ... this !done could , mean a saving of $7 to $10 per acre *Even wet fields can be covered evenly and completely *No investment required for equipment Beat the weather...For all your weed and fertilizer spraying on grain, corn and beans arrange now by calling LAMMENS SPRAYING SERVICE CALL YOUR CESSNA AG. PRO Local TePlheponheon5e19Nu87m5b-2e5r41482-34-69 R.R. 5, LANGTON WE HAVE BEEN SPRAYING CROPS IN SOUTH WESTERN ONTARIO FOR THE PAST TWELVE YEARS! Based at Scott's Poultry Farm, Seaforth MF . Massey Ferguson awn We're starting our'summer celebration right„now-- with special prices on many new tAF units. LOOK AT OUR BIG SAVINGS: MF 235 Tractor SAVE $200.00 MF 255 Tractor SAVE $200.00 MF 265 TraCtor SAVE $200.00 MF 275 Tractor SAVE $200.00 MF 40 Forklift SAVE $400.00 MF 50A Backhoe Loader SAVE $700.00 ' MF 30 Tractor W/Loader and Backhoe SAVE $400.00 ft .' Came in soon and check out all the savings during' this special sale! Limited to available inventories until [July 30, 19761 Boras Farrn Supply 5271 257 Seciforth , Ont. Attention CORN BEAN PRODUCERS Discover New Ways To Higher Profits From Your Corn and Bean Crops Models 270 " 370 570 Avoid Long Lineups at Elevators . . DRY YOUR CROP WITH A. TOX-O-WIK RECIRCULATING BATCH GRAIN DRYER Bean Producers . . See Why LILLISTON BEAN COMBINES • " Deliver A Better Quality Bean From Field To Elevator Than Anything on the Market e l See And Hear All About Th se Machines First Hand At C. G. FARM SU ip PLY LTD. Tuesday, July 6 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.; 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. Company Personnel On Hand to Answer Your Questions FREE REFRESHMENTS 01 000 THE HORON EXFOSlTOR, JULY 1, MO not happy Producer get bean report In Pennsylvanta ..farming is different house. Trailer, parks are more common around the countryside there than they are here too. At the Storey's farm in McKillop you can stand still and count about 11 silos on the horizon. That just possible where Amy, comes from. She.says she could see four silos at the most. Vanda, who is going into Grade 13 at SDH.S„will be making a return visit to Amy's farm from, August 2-9, with other Huron 4-H members who have been selected for the exchange. It's about a nine hour drive' from here. Amy says she'll show her a huge mushroom farm in Butler county that ships all over the world. The exchange visits are kept informal, with some special events for the whole group but lots of time' for the participants to get to know each - other and their families. Amy, like her hostess, has been active in 4-H for years, since she was nine. The Pennsylvania kids on the exchange are members of a 4-H Leaders Club. (By John Miner) Huron County white, bean Producers -have expressed dissatisfaction and anger Over a consultant's report recommen- ding some internal changes in the Marketing Board but none in the marketing system of white beans. Faced with heavy criticism over the• last year and a half from producers for the way, the board was operating, the Ontario Bean Producters Marketing Board commissioned a consulting firm to look into every aspect of the boatd and its marketing system. The study which cost producers about $30,000 was started February 1 this year and presented to the board June 9. The report's recommendations have been fully accented by the board, and they are now acting to implement them . Highlights of the study have been presented to bean dealers and last Monday night the Bean Board, started presenting a "summary of conclusions" to bean producers at meeting fm: Huron growers at Zurich Community Center. However, the full details of the consultant's report are not available to the press or the producers. The name of the consulting firm that prepared the report has' not been released either. William Baxter,' chairman of the newly formed producers- relations committee opened the meeting informing the packed hall: "We are going to run this meeting in an orderly way and if it isn't orderly we will adjourn." The summary was then read and copies were handed out to those present. "Why wasn't this sent out to us earlier so 'we could look it over and know what it was about before • we came?" asked one producer. Mr. Baxter replied that the board had doubts whether the producers read what was sent out to them -by the board and that the . board felt it had to be present to give the .report so there would be no misunderstandings. "Has the board read the report before accepting it?'" asked another producer.' "Why doesn't the board decide to • eliminate the dealers (middlemen) and sell the beans themselves?" suggested_mother. producer. "Why the hell didn't the boar'd sell the beans when the market' was high last fall?" someone else asked. The Ontario Bean Producers Marketing Board sets the price at which it feels the.beans should be sold , but the dealers can reject those prices or accept 'them and then sell the beans at even higher prices if they can. If the dealers refuse to buy beans at the price set by the board, it is up to the board to lower its price or withdraw them temporarily from the market. The chairman called for order several times and told the producers they were there to discuss the report, not the sale of last year's crop. However the producers refused to continue the meeting until sales were discussed. The board representa- tives finally agreed and John Mcllhargey, a member of the exective committee, told farmers that the board wasn't able to sell beans when the price was high because, with the poor harvest conditions, the beans were still in the field. "None of us could do anything, about it," he said. "If we had the beans we would have sold them." The summary of the report says that in "overall performance, the Ontario Bean Producers' Marketing Board has a record of successful achievment." However the report lists several areas of fault with the Board.' They are: - Conflict between Board members - lack of basic trust. - Cumbersome decision-making and inaction. - Political manoeuvering outside board by board members. - Inflexible Ontario pricing mechanism. . Apparent lack of priority setting. In the restructured organization the board manager becomes responsible for the day to day pricing decisions with the executive making decisions • on monthly marketing strategy, instead of the day to day decisions they made previously. The setting up of a producer relations committee was recommended by the study along with disbanding all other committees and re-forming them only if necessary as ad-hoc committees. The report also recommended that a "pick committee" be established to study the problems associated with pick procedures. Poor beans have a high percentage of "pick" and the dealers are supposed to dock the farmer so much based on the amount of picks However, some, elevators offer an incentive to farmers to bring their beans there by not penalizing them for pick. According to Phil Durand, chairman of the pick committee which has now 'bean set up, this lowers the income of • the producers who bring in good beans when the beans are sold. The report rejects any major change in the marketing of the beans and still retains the dealer method of marketing rather than the Board marketing them on their o*n,. The report states that "In carat ing out their functions since agency marketing was -introduced, Ontario dealers have served the Ontario bean Producers' Marketing Board well in their processing, distributrion and marketing roles"- and they "are valuable assets of the Ontario bean marketing and distribution system." In the December 1975 elections of the Bean Board in Huron, Bob Allen was not re-elected to the board it was rumoured because he favoured retention of dealers in the bean marketing system. Phil Durand, who favoured• direct marketing by producers and who now is chairman of the pick committee, was re-elected to the board at the same time. The report also discusses different markets and the competition facing Ontario producers. It rejects any move to a quota system and suggests that 'Ontario ake aggressive marketing efforts in the United States. Although some producers are skeptical of changes suggested by the report most dealer reaction _has been quite favourable according - to Lloyd Taylor, chairman of the executive committee of the Bean Board. "Their reaction was that it cleared up in their minds some of the problems of the direction we were headed in. They thought it was something they could work with and something we could work with for the benefit of the bean industry," he said. 'Archie Couper of Hensall Co-op confirms this view. "We felt the part of the report we were given showed that they had made definite progress in their organization. By putting more • responsibility on one or two people quicker decisions can be made which willb elp us keep up &little more with the market," he said 'v. The report predicts that world competition will become a lot stiffer for Ontario bean producers in the future. Chairman of the producer relations committee Bill Baxtet concurs with thiS- view as he told producers -at-the Zurich meeting. "It will.- be a lot tougher ball game from here on as prices go higher and the competition gets- stiffer." A meeting of Perth county producers at Kirkton on Wednesday night was much more subdued in character with less criticism of the Board being aired. Perth County producers have not been in the white bean business as long as the producers from South Huron area have and their yields are substantially higher so far. Ed Dearing of Staffa however did question the Board represen- tatives why they did not seek approval from producers before accepting the report. "It was the mandate of the producer relations committee," he was told. Producers were also told that the bean industry will be switched over to the metric system effective February 1, 1977. However some dealers may switch over earlier while others wait until the deadline. Instead of beans being measured in pounds and hundredweights, they will be measured in .kilograms and metric tonne's. One-metric tone is equal to 22,046 hundred weight. The conversion to the metric system will. be a "soft conversion", meaning that the Same scale's will be retained at the elevators until they wear out and the conversion to metric will take place in the office. Canada doesn't • seem like a different country, but the farms in ths Seaforth areaare quite different 'from the fans around .her home in Pennsylvania. That's the reaction of Amy Rose, 18, who stayed with Venda Storey in McKillop last week as part of a Huron exchange visit. Canadians are great and it feels a lot like home here, Amy says, but she's surprised that more local people, don't speak French, "since part of your country is French." Amy, whose mother is French, speaks it, along with Italian and German. Few of the farms in Amy's area of Pennsylvania are run by full time farmers. "There's not enough money in it," she says. Most farmers, including her father, work full time for the steel mill in nearby Butler. Amy, who comes from a 200-acre horse farm near the small village 'of Connoquenes- sing, says though the climate and the people are similar here, the kinds of farming' are different. There'olittle cash cropping in her area, about 40 miles north of Pittsburg. People grow corn, oats and hay, but for their own use. There are quite a few apple orchards, and beef cattle grace the hilly land. "You nded a few more hills here," Amy ,jokes. Her hosts,. Vanda's parents, Frances and Everett Storey, "tried-to show me some hills" but they're not big like they are in Pennsylvania. She's noticed that Huron towns seem cleaner and better kept than cities at home. Amy's home area doesn't have the land use regulations, designed to keep land in agricul- ture, that Huron has. Her father can sell off an acre at a time to someone who wants 'to build-a hopes. to 'have her own horses eventually., -Live in a city?. "I couldn't stand the noise," Amy says, ALL THE WAY FROM PA. — Amy Rose, left, of Butler County, Pennsylvania, is thinking of majoring in communications so she was interested in looking around the Expositor office when she visited with her Huron CoUniy host, Vanda Storey of R.R.1, Dublin last week. Bonnie Mager, also of Connequenessing in. Butler County,-spent the week with Sharon Thompson of R.R.2, Seaforth. Her mother, Carolyn Th ompson, said there were very few dry eyes when the 4-H exchange bus left .,,to go back to Pennsylvania. (Staff Photo) , Amy agrees that Canadians know a lot more about her country than she does about Canada. In her school system, which is nationally known for its excel- lence, she's had intensive language classes, starting with conyersational French in Grade thr ...e and has studied other countries, but not Canada. Amy's graduating class is more than twice as big as Vanda's whole school - 1013 compared to about 420 in all of S.D.H.S. She says she's always wanted to come to Canada and hopes to come back again. She starts college in the fall, in Meadville, Pa., and will study 'either communications or pre-law; she hasn't decided which yet. The Pennsylvania visitor always wants to live on a farm and