"The same questions being asked now, were asked eight years ago," said Lansdowne producer Nancy Kehoe. "What is OSMA doing for me? They are taking about $1,500 out of my pocket as licence fees each year," she said. "As a commercial producer I developed my own market. The market is screaming to get lamb. We don’t produce enough of it."

Kehoe owns a large flock of 750 ewes and trucks her lambs to Cookstown. The meat ends up on Toronto dinner plates where demand is growing because of about 250,000 new immigrants, many of whom are Muslim, to Canada each year. On the workings of the agency, she charged: "There’s nothing at this point that will surprise me. What started out as a concern about licencing fees has turned into concern about a board out of control."

She noted that in May a beef farmer paid a check-off fee to its marketing board of $3 for a $1,300 animal. At the same time, a sheep producer paid $1.55 to the sheep agency for a $155 animal.

Agency chairman and sheep producer Allan Burn, who owns 50-head near Perth, argues that complaints are mostly from a few producers in district 8 (Lennox-Addington, Frontenac, Hastings, Leeds and Prince Edward). He does blame the agency for not communicating well with its members. He started a new e-mail newsletter that reaches 25 per cent of 4,200 sheep producers in Ontario.

Rankled producers are upset about how their money is managed, noting these complaints:

1. The agency board discussed increasing licencing fees, which was the lightning rod issue that caused producers to question the board on other matters. Based on cost per animal, the fee is already the highest among livestock marketing agencies in the province. "We haven’t ruled that (increasing fees) out," Burn told Farmers Forum.

2. Increased per diem payments to $150 (up from $125) for directors in January.

3. Costs of $900 an hour for board meetings. Each board meeting costs about $5,000 and directors meet 10 times a year, Burn said.

4. A request for a breakdown of directors’ expenses was turned down. Burn defended the decision to not reveal expenses. "Because people come from different distances we don’t track individuals expenses," he said. "What people claim is reviewed by the office manager and bookkeeper. I get a list of cheques before they are signed and if I see anything unusual or abnormal I question anything before I sign."

5. Of the last two managers, one was fired, the other did not have her contract renewed. Burn says that the agency is a small one and a place where managers gain experience and move on to better jobs. The last manager, Norma Collett, said her physician told her to take stress leave.

Prince Edward County producer and former MPP Gary Fox argues that farmers are stuck with a system that allows for inefficiency. "I’m wasting my buck and a half they take from me when my lambs go to market. I have to do my own homework to get my lambs sold. The agency does nothing for me."

"I feel betrayed," added Linda Huizenga, owner of a 20-ewe flock north of Belleville. She said that 17 producers from five of the 11 Ontario districts supported a resolution in June asking the governing body, the Farm Products Marketing Agency, to investigate the agency’s operations.

Chairman Burn told Farmers Forum that investigation was a meeting with Farm Products on July 21 to answer questions about finances and practices. The outcome will be announced in mid-August, he said he was told.

Answering charges that OSMA doesn’t do anything for producers, chairman Burn told Farmers Forum that it is true that when prices are good you don’t need help marketing. But the more important role of OSMA is as a political lobby group, he said. "The government would walk all over us if there was no OSMA," Burn said. "We’re small but we get invited to all the meetings the big boys get invited to and we get to speak."

Miscommunication is the most obvious problem between farmers and their agency. In a recent public letter by Prince Edward County sheep farmer and district 8 director Chris Kennedy, he noted: "The recent brouhaha over a licence fee increase was based on rumour and gossip that took on a life of its own."

Agency director Gary Lapier, near Kemptville, said there is no way to determine how many sheep producers are upset with the marketing agency. "My phone is not ringing off the hook," he said. "There is concern out there but how many? Who knows? In some districts there are a lot of concerns."

He added that some farmers don’t realize the number of programs that the agency is involved in, which is much broader than marketing, and includes paying for television promotion, research on cost of production and publishing weekly market reports.