By John Vanderspank

When I said I had a problem with farm leadership in the May issue of Farmers Forum, I didn’t expect the firestorm it created. I wanted to speak directly to my producers in Eastern Ontario district 10 but I have since heard from and received support from farmers clear across Ontario. I found friends I never knew I had. I also became the issue of the day for the Wheat Board. They wanted to resolve the matter. So, last month they circled the wagons and burned me at the stake.

It’s been two months since I spoke out and there hasn’t been one overture to work with me on issues. The Wheat Board and my colleagues there have kicked me off all the committees and said I breached confidentiality and a code of conduct and want me to resign or else. Or else what? Or else they want my district 10 producers to vote in someone else. Problem is, there was no breach of confidentiality when the producers already knew that Warren Kinsella’s Daisy group was lobbying for us. As for a code of conduct, there isn’t one, and rather than vote in another director, my District 10 producers have threatened to leave the board altogether or at least apply for an exemption of our licencing fees. The Wheat Board can’t actually kick me off because they didn’t vote me in. My producers want me on the board to voice their concerns. And I’ve brought their concerns forward. I’ve tried to pass resolutions and they went nowhere. So, I turned up the heat and the wheat board found the kitchen a little too hot.

There has been a lot of barking and now the board has a new problem on its hands. The board wants to put a transition team together for the new amalgamated board, the Grain Farmers of Ontario, and they want 15 directors; five from the corn board, 5 from the soybean board and 5 from the wheat board. Well, I’m the only wheat board director east of Highway 400 that let my name stand for the new group. I am also the only elected director from northern Ontario. I should be acclaimed. Let’s see what happens.

Now that I got that off my chest, one of the top priorities of the commodity groups right now deals with cost of production. Farmers want to know what the actual costs are that the commodity groups are using to calculate the cost of production for Risk Management Program because we all know the numbers are too low. I’ve asked the wheat board for those numbers and the innuendo I’m getting is that farmers are too dumb to understand them. The number crunchers are afraid that farmers who have a higher than the average cost of production would scream that the numbers are inaccurate. But the bigger problem is that the numbers are wrong.

When the province started the RMP, they asked for accurate cost of production numbers and asked that this be an open and transparent program. But the grains and oilseeds safety net committee has kept this a total secret by keeping everything to themselves.

I’ve been accused by the wheat board of not being a team player because of issues like this. But only by pursuing it do my District 10 producers believe I am a team player. I am representing their interests and my first loyalties are to them. They know the cost of production numbers used for RMP are wrong because they are 2006 numbers, which are indexed. But the index does not reflect actual price increases.

Farming is a huge gamble every year. There’s no logic as to why prices move the way they do and then we’ve got the weather. In one day we can lose our entire crop. The weather makes us or breaks us every year. We can market ahead but it’s all just guess work. There are chances for huge profits but there are also huge risks. Each farmer needs to know his own cost of production. But the real numbers used to calculate the cost of production for our insurance program is essential too. As it is now, by the time you get a pay out you might already be in financial trouble. The safety net trigger for corn is $4.26 per bushel but true costs are more like $4.80 per bushel. Why pay into an insurance premium if you are insuring a guaranteed loss?

Now is the time to fix the problem. The Risk Management Program comes to an end this year. Everyone’s talking about pushing for a new program and then we’ll tweak it. CAIS was a piece of crap but seven years ago we said let’s get it into place, then we’ll tweak it. Same thing was said with the RMP. But CAIS was never tweaked and the original RMP program was never tweaked . Our history is not very good. We can change that. Let’s git ‘r done.