Farmers are killing Anne of Green Gables and poisoning her island home.

At least, that's the message tourists are getting when they board the ferry for Prince Edward Island. An eco-pressure group is handing out pamphlets called "How to protect your family from pesticide poisoning while visiting PEI...or...What the PEI government won't tell you in the tourist brochures." Farmers have launched a public relations counter-attack, but aren't sure they can undo the damage.

"Too many people are getting sick from sprays," says Pat Burgoyne, spokesperson for the Environmental Coalition of PEI. "We weren't getting anywhere working through the government, so we decided to build up as much public pressure as we can." Volunteers hand out the pamphlets to cars in New Brunswick that are lined up for the ferry. "We are frightened for the health of our children," the brochure says. "Many islanders have been poisoned by the drift from pesticide sprays."

The brochures tell tourists to make sure their hotel rooms are at least one-quarter mile away from potato fields, especially if they have children. "Tenters beware," it says. "You don't want your tent to be sprayed with toxic drift. Don't hang your clothes on the line, or leave your belongings outside."

The pamphlet also tells tourists to drink water "at your own risk", because of pesticide contamination. And, it adds, "If you see a tractor pulling a sprayer through a potato field, roll up your car windows and turn off the fan."

If tourists get 'flu or cold symptoms while on the island, there's a good chance the real cause is pesticide poisoning, the pamphlet says. "Chemicals can evaporate from fields and stay in the air for days after spraying...if you are chemically sensitive, you may have a difficult time enjoying your holiday."

"We had to take our message to the streets," Burgoyne says. "The media always put out the image of the poor farmer, and take their side."

Edison Heaney, president of the island federation of agriculture, says farmers own the high ground in the pesticide dispute, both scientifically and morally.

Heaney says searches of health records have failed to find a single case of pesticide poisoning. Heaney says island farmers are also cutting back on pesticide use, and doing a better job at controlling drift.

As in Ontario, farmers have to be certified to spray agricultural chemicals. New laws ban farmers from spraying when wind blows over 25 km per hour (15 mph), and the island is moving toward an environmental farm plan program. Heaney also says that if Canadian farmers can't grow the country's food, shoppers will have to import their supplies from other countries, where they have no say over pesticide use.

"We're trying to reassure people that we aren't reckless," Heaney says. "We're trying to get the message out that we're providing people with safe food at a reasonable price." PEI Minister of Agriculture Walter Bradley issued a formal press release to counter the brochure. "This kind of unsubstantiated fear-mongering and finger-pointing could have serious repercussion for both the tourism and agricultural industries," Bradley says. "Nothing short of a total ban on pesticides will satisfy these people, and at this point, that is simply unwarranted and unnecessary."

Bradley and Heaney, however, fear that despite their work, tourists will remember the images from the brochure. "Many island homes are located right beside potato fields," it says. "Would you like your kids to go out and play in a yard covered with poison? Would you like to eat vegetables from one of the gardens?"

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Farmers to find buyers

By TOM BUTTON

Ontario's wheat board is refusing to sell wheat for farmers whose crop has more than 10 per cent of kernels damaged by fusarium.

Instead, the board is classing the wheat as "salvage", a category usually reserved for wheat that spills as a result of a truck or rail accident, or is spoiled by smut.

Farmers with salvage wheat must find their own buyers. "It's too hot for us to handle," Ken Nixon, board vice chairman, told the board's annual meeting in Stratford. That response isn't going down well. "If the board can't sell my poor wheat, why should I sell you my good wheat?" Huron county cash cropper Frank VanHevel asked Nixon. "What do I need a board for?....I've never had a problem selling good crop."

VanHevel pointed out that the board is still pocketing the $1 per tonne marketing fee on the salvage wheat.

Elevator bids for salvage wheat are running from $85 to $107 per tonne, with the spread based largely on whether the price applies to cleaned or uncleaned crop.

The price is about half what farmers will be paid for their feed wheat.

"The board wants to sell my filet, but they won't touch my hamburger," Lambton county wheat grower John Simpson told Farm & Country. "It's in black and white in the board's regulations - they're supposed to sell all of our wheat."

Regulation 422 of the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Act states: "All wheat shall be marketed by or through the local board" and "No person shall market wheat except by or through the local board."

Jim Whitelaw, board marketing manager, told Farm & Country the board was forced to make a fast decision late July whether or not to accept wheat with high fusarium counts.

In other years, the board has set the limit at wheat with five per cent of kernels damaged by fusarium.

When the 1996 harvest started, however, the board quickly raised its limit to 10 per cent. The decision was partly made with an eye to protecting the board's initial payment system, since Ottawa's program won't cover salvage wheat.

Whitelaw figures the change let farmers sell 55,000 tonnes through the board for feed that would otherwise have been declared salvage.

Whitelaw predicted farmers had harvested only about 2,000 tonnes that exceeded the 10 per cent guideline.

But Whitelaw wasn't sure there wouldn't be more, mainly because of crop deterioration in the bin.

By Sept. 1, over 1,900 farmers had notified the board they were storing wheat and would be seeking board payouts under the on-farm storage program. The board plans to survey those farmers through September to update their numbers.

At the same time, the board will ask all those farmers to take samples to their country elevator for grading.

Peter Johnson, crops specialist for the Ontario agriculture ministry at London, expects many farmers will get a rude shock.

One W.G. Thompson elevator has discovered a five-per-cent increase in dry wheat it had stored in a concrete, aerated silo. The problem, Johnson said, is the wheat isn't really dry.

"The harvest was very uneven," he explained. "Even if the average moisture is 14 per cent, there will be green kernels that are 16 per cent or more, and in those kernels the fusarium will keep growing and producing vomitoxin." Coffee shops are buzzing with rumours of wheat going bad, including a story of a Lambton farm where wheat was put in a steel bin with full floor aeration at 17.8 per cent moisture and a one per cent fusarium count. The fan was left on, but two weeks later, with moisture down to 15.3 per cent, the fusarium count had jumped to 15 per cent.

"You cannot dry this crop fast enough in a natural air bin to stop the fusarium," Johnson said.

Nixon told the Stratford meeting the board is working for the $1 per tonne it's collecting from salvage sales.

For instance, the board is pushing the crop insurance commission for a 65 per cent quality factor on salvage harvests. If it agreed, the commission would multiply the farmer's yield by 0.65 to calculate a #2 grade equivalent and decide if the farm can file a claim. "That will put a pile of dollars into the hands of growers who had 10-plus fusarium wheat," Nixon said.

Nixon also said the board needs every check-off dollar it can get. Board administration in 1995 cost $1.3 million, including $540,000 for salaries and benefits.

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Forward sales backfire

The Ontario wheat board has lost $3 million because it couldn't meet its forward-contract commitments for delivery at harvest.

The bigger controversy, however, is how the board will make its farmers pay for the loss.

"A lot of us feel like we were bribed into producing #2 wheat," says Joe Kerr, Wallaceburg cash cropper who has campaigned to get more marketing power handed back to farmers. "If we have to pay for these buy-outs, people are going to think they've been cheated...this issue is so big, it could determine the future of the board."

According to wheat board marketing manager Jim Whitelaw, the board pre-sold 155,000 tonnes of milling-quality wheat for harvest time delivery. It's in line with traditional board policy where one-third of its exportable surplus is sold before harvest, one-third at harvest, and most of the remainder before close of navigation.

At harvest, however, the board couldn't deliver milling-quality wheat, Whitelaw says. The board was forced to pay $18.75 a tonne to buy its way out of a 100,000-tonne contract, and dropped its price on another 55,000 tonnes by $20 per tonne so the buyer would take feed grade.

Now, the board must determine which of its pools should be tapped to cover the $2.985-million loss.

Historically, the board charges expenses against the pool that incurred them. In this case, since the costs were caused by a shortfall in Pool A, the white milling wheat pool, the buy-out would be assessed against farmers who shipped #2 or #3 wheat. That would chop the price for those farmers by $27 per tonne, Ken Nixon, board vice chairman, estimates.

At the board's recent annual meeting in Stratford, Nixon outlined their choices. The board could assess the charge against the milling wheat in Pool A, against the red and white wheat in the feed pool, Pool G, or against all white wheat, no matter which pool it was shipped to.

"That's a decision we have to make," Nixon said. "What is fair?"

Kerr said farmers who changed their combine settings to leave as many damaged kernels as possible in the field shouldn't have to pay for the buy-outs.

"If we had known at harvest that we'd be stuck with these buy-out costs, we would have harvested the crop for feed," Kerr told Farm & Country. "We'd have got more tonnes, and if that $27 goes against Pool A, it looks like we'd also had got a better price."

Kent wheat grower Wayne Van Damme, who delivered all #2, said the buy-out costs should be charged against all white wheat. "Those who ended up in the feed pool helped create the problem," Van Damme said. "They should share in the expense." Oxford grower Steve McQueen suggested the board make better use of Chicago-based options, so it doesn't have to deliver physical wheat at harvest.

Nixon, however, said the board must pre-sell export wheat for harvest delivery. Most years, Ontario farmers deliver nearly 90 per cent of their crop within three weeks at harvest. - TB

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Seed quality lowest in decades

This year's wheat seed is even worse than it looks. Farmers who plant their own bin-run seed can expect a flop. Farmers who try to buy Certified #1 seed should brace for disappointment.

Seed quality is the lowest in decades. Yet with a delayed soybean harvest paving the way for late wheat planting, the crop has a crying need for seed that can give it a fast, vigorous start.

"We've already sold 50 acres of our certified AC Ron as commercial grain," reports Tom Martin, president of Fair-Lea Seeds, which grows and retails certified seed at St. Thomas, and also operates a seed testing lab.

Martin isn't alone. Tests on crops grown from Wallaceburg to Simcoe and north past London show they simply don't have what it takes to make top-quality seed, he says.

Other seed labs confirm that quality is poor on Ontario crops, no matter where they were grown.

Certified rules say wheat seed must score at least 85 per cent in a germination test in order to get a #1 tag. For #2, it must score at least 75 per cent.

Cathy Breadner, analyst at Canada Seed Labs in Lindsay, has seen germination scores from 69 to a peak at 82 per cent. "Normally, we don't have any trouble getting #1 seed," Breadner says. "This year, nothing is really good. Even when we've tried to pick out the diseased seeds, we still see a lot of mould."

Martin predicts Ontario will have little #1 wheat seed. "The AC Ron that we rejected had germination in the 60 per cent range," he says. "The Harus is better, but I'm not sure it will be #1."

Crop watchers are expecting wheat plantings to sag below last year's 850,000 acres, partly because the summer's fusarium epidemic has turned a lot of farmers off wheat, and also because soybean harvest is late and other farmers won't be able to plant their intended acreage.

Even with a small crop, seed supply will be tight. Poor germination scores will lead farmers to boost their seeding rates.

Art Schaafsma, pest specialist at Ridgetown college, warns that the higher rate won't prevent poor stands, especially for non-certified seed that hasn't been cleaned to remove tombstone kernels.

"The seedling blight phase of fusarium can spread," Schaafsma stresses. "One tombstone kernel can kill the three or four plants near to it."

Schaafsma is recommending that farmers ensure their seed is thoroughly cleaned to remove tombstone. But he also adds that cleaning alone won't boost germination rates back to normal. Many plump looking kernels have enough fusarium on or in them to kill them, he points out.

"This is a critical year for seed treatment," Schaafsma. "Vitaflo is quite good against fusarium, although it isn't perfect."

Schaafsma is encouraging farmers to insist on the high application rate of the seed protectant. Gustafson, which makes Vitaflo, says that based on a 90-pound-per-acre seeding rate, the high rate adds about 75 cents an acre to treatment costs.

In preliminary germination tests, Martin has seen treatment boost sprout levels by up to 30 per cent.

Like Schaafsma, he's warning farmers that, while good seed cleaning is critical, it won't be enough to ensure a good stand on its own.

"If you've got wheat that the elevator says has seven per cent damaged kernels, that doesn't mean you're looking at a 93 per cent germination rate," he stresses. "It could just as easily be 60 per cent. And if you clean out all the damaged kernels, it might still only be 65 per cent."

Martin, past president of SeCan, says the trade will find enough seed for growers who want to plant wheat this fall. He's urging farmers to keep in touch with their seed suppliers, however.

At the same time, seed retailers know they can't expect farmers to commit to seed purchases when they can't be sure there will be enough time after soybean harvest to get the wheat in the ground.

"My suggestion is, give your dealer as much lead time as you can," he says. "If you do, we'll find the seed." - TB

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Contracts set for October

Starting Oct. 1, Ontario's wheat growers can sign forward contracts for their 1997 harvests.

It's the first time since the provincial wheat board set up its pools in 1972 that farmers can market their own wheat. The board will offer a forward contract price updated daily, says Terry Ross, board chairman. Contracts will be available on all varieties and classes of wheat, with a 1,000-bushel minimum.

Farmers who sign forward contracts must deliver to an elevator, mill or terminal of their choice next harvest, or they can pre-arrange to ship later in the crop year.

Contract wheat can now also be stored at county elevators. Other board programs, especially the on-farm storage program, prohibit farmers from storing crop anywhere but on the farm. Farmers who can't meet their contracts will have to buy their way out, Ross says.

And, he adds, farmers won't be protected by the financial protection program that shields corn and soybean growers from elevator bankruptcy or fraud. Nor will farmers qualify for on-farm storage benefits for contracted wheat.

Farmers will get their money in two cheques for the wheat they sell under contract. First will be the initial payment cheque when they deliver, the same as when delivering wheat sold through the pools. Within days, the board will mail a second cheque to lift the price to the contract level.

That's the last money they'll see, Ross says. They won't qualify for interim or final payments that may go to pool shipments through the year.

Contract prices will be based on Chicago, with a basis that reflects the Ontario market, along with a buffer to cover the cost of the board using marketing tools to lay off its risk. The board could sign a forward-contract deal with a U.S. processor to cover each contract that it signs with farmers. The board may also use futures to hedge its risks, so it doesn't get into another situation like this year, when it has promised to deliver physical wheat that can't be found, says Jim Whitelaw, board marketing manager. - TB

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