New wheat vote promised...but when?
By TOM BUTTON
David Santo wants to cast a ballot on whether he should be forced to sell all his wheat through the Ontario wheat board's pooling system."Let's stop the flip-flopping," says the Essex county cash cropper. "A vote is healthy for the industry. Let's get on with it."
It looks as if he'll get his chance, but not for several months.
The wheat board and the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission are still picking up the pieces from the first attempt to give Santo and Ontario's other 17,000 wheat growers a vote, originally scheduled for Nov. 21.
The vote was scrapped following a storm of controversy unleashed when the commission, which oversees Ontario's marketing boards, decided that it should take a two-thirds majority vote for the board to keep its agency powers. Put the other way, pool opponents would only need to muster a 34-per-cent vote to shelve the board's single-desk marketing system.
Terry Ross, board chairman, thinks the commission had little choice but to pull the plug on the wheat vote in the wake of intense pressure from groups ranging from individual marketing boards to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the Ontario Agricultural Commodity Council, composed mainly of non-agency commodity boards and associations.
"The vote was turning into a vote over whether the vote itself was democratic," Ross says. "It wasn't going to be a vote about the wheat pools."
Now, all parties are wondering about the next step. Commission chairman Jim Wheeler says there's still time to meet the original deadline for a decision on the future of pools before the wheat crop planted in the fall of 1998 comes to market. "There are a lot of issues to work through. I don't know what the future of the wheat vote is going to be."
Ross says the board isn't going to jump at pushing for a new date. Board directors will meet next month and it's expected they will then want to meet with the commission. After that, they will want to meet at least once more before charting a new direction.
"I think we'll also want to go back to the growers - maybe at the county meetings this winter - and ask them for their ideas," Ross says. "That's not the board's position; that's only me as an individual director."
Among wheat growers, there's already widespread support for a vote, this time with a simple 50 per cent plus one majority being enough to either save or scrap the pools.
Last March, wheat delegates from across the province voted to ask the commission to hold a wheat vote on the understanding it would take a two- thirds majority to kill the pools. Early April, board directors made a formal request to the commission, specifying the two-thirds hurdle.
Pool opponents, led by Santo, chairman of the Essex wheat committee, Joe Kerr, chairman of Kent and Joe Thomson, chairman of Middlesex, wrote the commission in favour of a simple 50 plus one majority.
Early September, after the wheat board's annual meeting, board directors also wrote the commission asking for a 50-plus-one majority.
The commission says, however, that if it allows the wheat board to keep running its single-desk system, it is in effect giving the board the authority to compel farmers like Santo who don't like the pools to continue to sell through the board against their will, so a two-thirds majority isn't out of line.
Wheeler says too that the commission is bound by strict provincial law. "Many people, including a lot of producers, think it's the right of producers to decide whether or not to have an agency," Wheeler says. "It's not their decision."
Instead, since an agency also interferes with the rights of millers to buy from wheat growers, and the rights of consumers to buy foods made from wheat sold on open markets, the commission must also take into account the views of processors and the general public.
Santo, meanwhile, says that any more delays will simply cost the industry more money. "We've been paying long enough to save our wheat for the domestic millers, store it for them and ship it to them."
Without the pools, growers would be signing contracts to grow new premium-paying identity-preserved wheats, just as they are with soybeans, Santo says. "The wheat industry would be booming if we could put it back into the hands of private enterprise."
Rising bread market keeps wheat golden
A decade ago, Ontario's 1997 harvest of Quantum spring wheat would have been disastrous. Now, it is merely disappointing: Growers will still get a relatively healthy price.The American wheat market is growing so fast, and becoming so diversified, that wheats such as Quantum are finding quick sales even when they fall short of bread standards.
Per-capita wheat consumption in the U.S. jumped 16 per cent in the five years leading up to 1996, according to a new survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
In Canada, consumption has stayed flat through the 1990s, according to Statistics Canada numbers analyzed by Michael Price of the federal agriculture department. At the start of the decade, the typical Canadian ate 132 pounds of wheat flour a year, the same amount as in 1996.
In the U.S., by contrast, per-capita consumption started the decade at 137 pounds and climbed to 148 pounds by 1996, an eight per cent increase.
More importantly, the USDA report shows that growth is fastest in categories that are most likely to use Ontario wheats. Sales of yeast breads, made with hard red wheats that are proving difficult to grow in the province, are up one per cent.
Consumption of cakes, cookies and pastries made primarily from soft wheats have climbed 26 per cent, for an increase of 6.5 pounds per year. Americans are also eating more pretzels, with the snack food category for grains including wheat and corn up 72 per cent.
Most impressive is the growth in the confusing category called "mixtures mainly wheat," which measures the wheat consumption in products ranging from pizza and prepared lasagna to tacos. It has jumped 23 per cent, adding an extra 18.5 pounds of wheat a year to the diet of the average American.
The growth in new market segments is making a difference back on the farm in Ontario, market experts say. Ontario wheat growers have harvested 25,000 tonnes of the new spring red Quantum, which they hoped would be strong enough for sales to domestic flour millers. Testing is still ongoing, but it appears those hopes have been dashed for the 1997 crop.
This year's Quantum is failing a critical test called the "falling number test," which millers use to assess how wheat will perform in bread flours. Jeff Reid, marketing manager at C & M Seeds, which controls Quantum in Ontario, says the variety genetically has low but acceptable falling number scores, but that scores were pushed lower than normal because of up to four weeks of rain and cold at harvest.
Others in the industry think that even in good years, Quantum is likely to prove a mediocre bread wheat that would have to be blended with Prairie red springs to make acceptable bread flours.
Still, the future of hard red wheats may not depend on whether they make good bread. Jim Whitelaw, wheat board marketing manager, expects most of this year's Quantum will be sold in the U.S. into the booming pizza market. "We may also sell it for pretzels, or maybe even to candy makers," Whitelaw says. "People don't realize licorice is 35-per-cent wheat flour."
Because of the fast-growing markets, Whitelaw expects Quantum will fetch about $170 per tonne, "a few dollars more than Fundulea." Before harvest, Whitelaw had projected a spread of $10 per tonne.
As a result, growers will be able to balance the price outlook against yields. In previous tests by the Ontario Cereal Crop Committee, Quantum outyielded spring red checks Roblin and Celtic by 25 per cent.
"We're very happy with the agronomics," Reid says. "There are lots of reports of yields over 75 bushels per acre."
Reid is hoping that quality will be better next year, and that new varieties in the research pipeline will earn a more dependable share of Ontario's 1.7- million-tonne-per-year grind of hard red wheat. Meanwhile, the burgeoning U.S. markets will provide a high-slung safety net.
Canada's wheat industry is now hoping to match the spectacular growth in wheat sales south of the border, reports Andrew Rankine, marketing specialist for the Ontario agriculture ministry who works with the provincial wheat board.
A committee of wheat boards, flour millers, bakers and governments met in Winnipeg last month to study the successful Wheat Food Council in the U.S., which is widely praised for helping raise American consumption by touting the health benefits of wheat.
"There are a lot of opportunities to raise wheat consumption in Canada," Rankine says. "We think we should be able to create more markets at home."-TB
Drains become wildlife habitat war zone
By TOM BUTTON
Farmers who want to build new drains or hope to clean out old ones can expect their plans to be slowed up by months due to a new round of squabbling between the federal and provincial governments over fish habitat."There will be delays," says Gerry Swanson, spokesperson for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
"We have very limited staff," Swanson says. "They will cope as best they can."
The federal Fisheries Act prohibits the destruction of fish habitat. In 1989, the federal fisheries department signed an interim deal with the Ontario natural resources ministry empowering the province to enforce the regulations.
Under the deal, regulators started to classify farm drainage systems as fish habitat, even if the drains had never been part of a natural stream.
Dan Elliott, area supervisor for the natural resources ministry at Aylmer, says his office would typically look at 400 drainage applications a year and impose fish habitat sanctions on 30 to 50.
The federal government, however, never paid Ontario to enforce the law. When the Harris government took office, Natural Resources Minister Chris Hodgins demanded an overhaul of the system, together with compensation.
Late summer, Hodgins issued an ultimatum, demanding the federal government pay $90 million over three years or Ontario would stop enforcing the regulations.
Swanson says Ottawa can't pay: "It's just not possible." So last month, Hodgins pulled the plug.
As a result, the fish habitat implications of all the drainage construction and maintenance projects in the province will have to be reviewed by the federal department's Burlington office staff of six.
"We're going to be swamped," says Karen Gray, fisheries officer at Burlington. "We could be getting thousands of calls."
Swanson says Ottawa won't change the way the regulations are enforced. Technically, the Fisheries Act bans "harmful alteration" of fish habitat, with extra emphasis on the habitat of rare species and on waterways that are important to sports or commercial fishery species at any time in their life cycle.
Under the regulations, the only way harmful alteration-such as a drain or stream that's part of a cold water river system being channelled-can be allowed is if the farmer or municipality creates more fish habitat in another location so there is no net loss.
Rob Savage, spokesperson for Hodgins, says the issue is one of efficiency and government accountability: "We don't believe the responsibility for fish habitat should be shared...it should be their responsibility or ours, not both," Savage says.
Registration harmony, finally
Worldwide registration of pesticides has moved a big step closer to reality after getting strong support in Ireland last month at meetings of the Organization for Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD).Within a couple years, farmers around the world could get clearance to start spraying new pesticides at essentially the same time, says John McCully, government affairs director for DowElanco and Canadian industry member of the OECD pesticide committee.
Canadian farmers may wait two to three years after new pesticides are introduced to U.S. and European markets. "Competitive access to new crop protection materials is a key issue," says Bill Allison, chair of the Ontario farm environmental coalition AgCare. "We'd like to see the OECD plan succeed."
Under the plan, countries such as Canada would still have final approval of a new pesticide, no matter how other OECD countries reacted. Canada could and would likely also demand some extra testing on, for instance, soil residues in Canadian climates.
The Canadian government's registration office, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, has assigned high-level staff to the OECD proposal, says agency spokesman Kevin Simpson. He points out the agency is also working on harmonization with the U.S. and Mexico under NAFTA.
McCully says the first world-wide registration of a pesticide through OECD is at least a couple of years away. Governments must first approve the new standards, and then companies will need to file applications under the new system.
Still, he says, "I'm amazed at how much progress has been made in the last 12 months. We're on the verge of a major breakthrough."-TB
Wood-fired grain dryer chops canola costs
By DON STONEMAN
ENGLEHART-The old saw that "necessity is the mother of invention" never rang truer than for Leo Denomme, who farms east of Englehart, in the clay belt more than two hours drive north of North Bay.A few years ago, Denomme faced a late fall and a canola crop that wouldn't dry in the field. Canola moistures averaged between 20 and 25 per cent off the combine. The local grain elevator charged a whopping $45-a-tonne fee for drying the 20-tonne crop.
"That's your profit right there. They had to dry it twice," says Denomme. He solved his wet crop problem the next year by building a wood-fired dryer and blowing the heat into the bottom of his perforated-floor grain bins. The stove's 36-inch-diameter fire box is fashioned from a section of pipe purchased from a pipeline contractor. A heat-collection box sits on top of the fire box. Air is drawn through a baffle in the heat-collection box into the air intake of the Perth Farm Systems' 1.5-hp single-speed fan that aerates the grain bin.
The fan pulls air through the stove and pushes it into the bottom of the steel bin, which holds 4,200 bushels of grain. The hot air floats up and through the perforated floor into the wet grain.
Denomme says it took three days to weld the stove together in his shop: "It rained all the time I built this thing. I knew I was in trouble."
He keeps the stove about six feet away from the grain bin to avoid overheating the aeration fan. The air conduit between the dryer and the bin is a sheet of aluminum wrapped around the outlets and secured with duct tape.
Denomme burns birch logs, which burn particularly hot, and tamarack roots. He figures that a face cord of wood (4X4X8 feet) costs $60 and dries about 60 tonnes of canola.
Drying grain with this rig is as much art as it is science. Denomme takes one grain sample from the bottom with a probe and another from the top. He figures that if the grain is six-per-cent moisture at the bottom where it gets the most heat and 13 per cent at the top, the canola will average 9.5-per-cent moisture when it is augered out.
Denomme grew 65 acres of canola, 85 acres of milling wheat, and 55 acres of barley this year. He also raises 36 cows and stockers, doing all this on 650 acres of land, partly cleared.
His 1996 crop was in good shape because of an exceptional growing year, so the dryer wasn't used much. He figures 1997's delayed planting will bring the wood dryer into regular use again.
Dryer guru responds
Helmut Speiser, Ridgetown-based agriculture engineer, says there are a few things to watch out for when using a stove that burns organic material and has no temperature control.The chimney on the dryer must be high enough so that smoke is easily drawn out of the stove. Otherwise, says Speiser, smoke pulled into the dryer along with the hot air may taint the crop.
And he cautions that unless some outside air is drawn into the intake of the grain bin along with the heated air from the stove, there could be damage to the fan motor, "though these are heavy-duty motors." That's why he recommends having some method of controlling the temperature of the hot air.
Speiser says he's seen rigs similar to Denomme's: One wood-fired, the other burning small, square bales of straw. "It's a question of how much time you're prepared to spend stoking," he says.
Overdrying grain in the bin could also be risky. "Dry grain like popcorn and you're giving away extra dry matter" to the elevator, which doesn't pay a bonus for grain or oilseeds dried to less than 10-per-cent moisture.
Overdrying won't hurt canola, which is crushed to make meal and oil, Speiser says. But milling wheat may be another matter. "Overdrying appears to change the composition of starches so that products like bread don't bake as fluffy."-DS