See you in court
It didn't take long for the province's Normal Farm Practices Board to find itself knee-deep in the hoopla. In January, the board, created in 1997 as part of the provincial government's farm practices protection legislation, made its first ruling, overthrowing a proposed nutrient management bylaw in Biddulph township in Middlesex county.The bylaw, designed to limit intensive livestock production, rules that farmers would not be able to construct facilities housing in excess of 500 livestock units on any one building site. It also requires at least one acre of tillable land for every 1.5 livestock units and stipulates that the owner of the livestock operation must own at least 66 per cent of the landbase required for spreading of manure. A nutrient management plan must be registered with the township.
The bylaw posed headaches for Biddulph farmer Fred Knip, who wants to build a new 2,000-animal barn on his farm to go along with his existing 1,000-hog facility. Knip's plan would push the total number of hogs to 3,000, or 750 animal units, contravening the bylaw.
When provincial Agriculture Minister Noble Villeneuve announced the formation of the board in 1997 he said the board would act as a "referee" between farmers and local municipalities. "This board will be there to assist municipalities probably before anyone gets in trouble. I think it's a preventative measure," he said. Villeneuve hoped that new farm practices legislation would protect farmers from nuisance lawsuits and restrictive bylaws, But the board's decision appears to have poured gas on an already roaring fire.
Biddulph township and a group of residents disagree with the referee's decision. Under the Board appeals process, they'll take the matter to Ontario Divisional court where the case will likely be heard by a panel of three judges. They'll be provided with the board's written decision, but will be unlikely to have the expert agriculture input that the board was privy to in reaching its conclusion.
"We believe the board has exceeded its jurisdiction," says lawyer Paul Vogel, who has filed notice of appeal. The board's "only jurisdiction under the act is to determine whether something is a normal farm practice. It does not extend to how a municipality should deal with control of nutrient management," he says.
The Biddulph appeal has named Knip as the defendant, but farm groups are already lining up to offer their support. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture passed a motion last month to lobby OMAFRA to lend its support. The OFA fears an unfavourable court decision could render the board toothless to protect farmers.
Farm practices board chairman Edward Oldfield defends the board's decision. He says the board felt that requiring individual farmers to own 66 per cent of their total land base would restrict normal farm practice. He says that long-term land rental agreements should be sufficient to make land available for managing manure produced by the operation.
Oldfield says that requiring that a huge chunk of property be registered in the name of the farm owner does not reflect the reality seen on most Ontario farms. He points out that due to legitimate estate and tax planning, small pieces of family farms are often held by individual farm members.
Vogel maintains that the board has no business telling municipalities that it can't cap the number of livestock units. The board concluded that "the cap restricts normal farm practices," says Oldfield. "If that's part of your bylaw, it may be open to challenge."
Will the board's ruling stand the test of an appeal? "It's out of our hands," says Oldfield.
"It certainly will take a few months to resolve," says Vogel. See you in court. - Bernard Tobin
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Budget booster for rural health
But safety nets left out
BY BERNARD TOBIN
After five tight-fisted budgets, Finance Minister Paul Martin has finally loosened the federal purse strings.In his budget last month, Martin dipped into an anticipated $11.7-billion surplus to approve $5.6 billion in new spending for the coming fiscal year. In the first year, funds will be used to finance a host of program commitments including increased health-care funding and money over several rural and farm-related initiatives.
Canadians are now "harvesting what has been sown and nurtured over the past five years," said Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Lyle Vanclief.
"The focus is clearly on targeting the rewards of fiscal prudence and responsibility where they are most needed - health care and financial relief."
The government will increase health-care spending by $11.5 billion over the next five years. Ontario is expected to receive about $1 billion in extra transfers in the next fiscal year.
Ontario Premier Mike Harris said the new money is a good first step, but not enough to fix the health-care problem.
Some tax relief comes from a $675 increase in the personal exemption for taxpayers. Finance department math shows relief will be minimal, however: about $115 per taxpayer per year. But all taxpayers will receive an increase in the child tax benefit, $350 per child.
On the farm side of the ledger, Vanclief noted that the budget does confirm the government's $900-million commitment to the Agriculture Income Disaster Program.
Other farm and rural initiatives include:
* $50 million for technology to help deliver rural health care over three yearsOther initiatives for rural Canada include increased investment for rural communications and a 50-per cent increase in funding for the government's Youth Employment Strategy. Vanclief noted that one-third of the jobs go to rural Canadians.* $55 million for the biotechnology industry over three years. About one-third of the money will be targetted to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada for work in areas such as nutraceuticals
*$65 million over three years to improve food safety. Vanclief says the money is being targetted to Health Canada, because it sets the rules and the regulations. It will be the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Agriculture and Agri-Food's job to make sure the rules are enforced.
The budget was greeted with guarded optimism in the farm community. Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Jack Wilkinson said he was pleased to see Martin open his wallet. "You can't do anything if you don't have any money."
Wilkinson, who finished up his final term as CFA president last week, said he would have liked to see some movement on limiting cost recovery and noted that much work needs to be done to secure the future of Canada's safety net programs.
The government maintained its $600-million commitment to safety nets, part of the provincial-federal agreement due to expire next year, but Wilkinson emphasized that farm groups have their work cut out for them to ensure that the government makes a long-term commitment to disaster relief.
He added that after years of cutbacks, the government appears ready to re-invest in agriculture.
Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Ed Segsworth said, "It was good to see that [government] has put more money back into health care. That will help rural Ontario."
But Segsworth said the government has to do more to support agriculture. "Agriculture is the second largest industry in the country, but it was completely overlooked."
Segsworth, like Wilkinson, believes the government has to commit to a permanent farm income disaster program. "Falling commodity prices and the crisis in the pork industry is a good indication that we do need a third line of defence," he said.
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Trouble in the townships
Ontario rural municipalities are still smarting from the costs of provincial downloading and the end of the Farm Tax Rebate Program.Under the old rebate system, farmers paid the full residential rate on farmland and then had 75 per cent of the amount rebated by the provincial government. Under the new rules, farmers pay roughly the same amount - about 25 per cent of the residential rate - but no provincial money is added to the pot, leaving local governments scrambling to cover the shortfall.
Changes to farm tax "is costing us about $800,000," says Bill Patterson, deputy mayor of Clearview township, a new Simcoe county amalgamated municipality made up of the town of Stayner and the villages of Creemore, Nottawasaga and Sunnidale.
Patterson says the government keeps telling the township that it should be able to use savings from lower education costs to offset the farm tax shortfall. With the province taking over education funding, Clearview has $2.5 to $3 million in tax revenue, formerly earmarked for schools, to spend in other areas. But Patterson says "we have a lot of places to put it. We're running out at the bottom of the page."
He points out that policing costs, formerly paid for by the province, have jumped from $12,000 to $1.4 million and welfare, roads and ambulance are costing another $1 million.
"The province used to cover 50 per cent of everything we spend on roads. We get zilch now," says Patterson. "That's supposed to come out of that [education] money, too. The bottom line is we're short a million bucks."
At the Rural Ontario Municipal Association annual meeting in Toronto last month, Patterson voiced his concerns to Minister of Agriculture Noble Villeneuve, who said he would look into the situation.
Patterson says the township is trying to make up for the shortfall by cutting costs. But he adds there will be a price to pay if budget items such as ambulances and roads are squeezed too severely.
In 1994, the amalgamated townships spent $1.3 million on road construction. "Last year, we spent a little over $600,000," Patterson says. "It's just money you can't spend if you don't have it." - Bernard Tobin
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Getting the greenhouse in order
Ontario's greenhouse industry is at the top in North American markets, and plans to stay that way. The last thing that the greenhouse vegetable growers marketing board wants is for a foodborne disease outbreak to bring exports to a screeching halt.That's why greenhouse growers are welcoming a $1.6 million initiative from the province to bring in strong programs to assure the safety of the produce that they sell.
Exports have become the mainstay of the province's greenhouse industry, centred in Essex county. Its acreage and the farmgate value of its production has doubled since the early 1990s, says Greenhouse Vegetable Growers general manager Denton Hoffman.
Last year, greenhouse growers in Ontario sold $204 million worth of cucumbers and tomatoes. This year sales are expected to reach $255 million, and the projections are that they will keep rising.
Two years ago tomato yields averaged 17 to 18 pounds per plant, Hoffman says. "Now we are pushing the 50 [pound] mark. We need it."
Just over half the tomato production, and 22 per cent of the cucumbers, are marketed in the U.S. Ontario tomatoes have become the produce of choice, much to the chagrin of American producers.
"The Americans would love us to have something that didn't quite fit," Hoffman says.
Florida tomato growers have already accused Ontario of dumping tomatoes into their markets. The charges didn't make it to first base in U.S. trade courts, however.
The program will improve sanitation across the food chain, says Hoffman. His nightmare is that he will get a call from a reporter in Texas telling him that people are sick from his tomatoes. "I want to be sure that I can address the issue, and say that we are doing something about it," Hoffman says.
A decade ago pesticides were the top food safety issue. Now pesticides have sunk to the bottom of the list, and bacteria is the No. 1 concern.
Concerns are being driven by retailers, Hoffman says - they are the first to feel the repercussions if people get sick.
Retailers in Canada have told him that in two years they will require a certification that the produce delivered to their doors is clean.
The food safety issue is such a big concern that shippers, the companies that compete against each other to pack and export vegetables, agree that something needs to be done. "When you've got shippers working together, that's news," Hoffman says.
The emphasis of the program will be to curb post-harvest contamination, Hoffman says. "You have to put good sanitary practices into your operation," he says. "People don't know how to wash their hands. We're going to have to help them."
Hoffman has been watching food safety blow up as an issue across North America, and it concerns him. "We don't have a traceback system, that is a concern." A traceback system that can be used to find the source of contaminated produce can be a marketing tool and a trade management tool. On top of that, if there is a food recall, the losses to the industry will be greatly reduced.
Hoffman is determined that all growers and distributors will adhere to the new higher food safety standards that will be part of the program. "I want to make it so public that no one can avoid it," Hoffman says. "This is not a witch hunt, this is tidying up our mess." - Don Stoneman
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Corks popped on vintage year
Last year's early spring and warm summer were great news for the Ontario grape harvest. "The 1998 grape harvest is assured a place in the record books" for both quality and quantity, announced John Neufeld, chairman of the Ontario Grape Growers' Marketing Board, at a Queen's Park reception in late January.Growers have spent more than $100 million upgrading and expanding vinifera wine grape vineyards since 1990, Neufeld said. And many of those plantings - including Chardonnay, Riesling, Cabernet and Merlot - came on stream in 1998, increasing the vinifera harvest by 30 per cent over last year to 14,090 tonnes.
The vinifera increase represents over one million new vines, said Neufeld, and there are a further two million in the ground. Farmgate value of the grape harvest was a record-setting $40.9 million, up 17 per cent over last year. "We are right on track for the future," he said.
Overall wine grape sales increased to 33,866 tonnes from 32,310 last year, with French hybrids - Baco Noir, Vidal and Seyval, for example - dropping slightly from 19,700 tonnes in 1997 to 19,335 last year. The trend may indicate growers are moving away from the lower priced varieties usually used in blended wines.
Vincor International Inc. and Andrés Wine Ltd., the two largest purchasers of wine grapes in the province, purchased fewer tonnes of white French hybrids last year, citing a consumer shift away from whites to reds and to higher end vinifera products.
Juice grape tonnage dropped slightly from 9,660 in 1997 to 9,644 last year, but that's good news considering that the 1997 harvest was 20 per cent lower than 1996. Concord prices improved from $415 per tonne to $474, which could encourage growers to get back in the juice grape business and fill the shortfall for Ontario processors. - Christina Selby
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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