Federation gets set to pound the pavement
By BERNARD TOBIN
Ontario Federation of Agriculture directors are preparing a new recruitment drive, four years after Bob Rae's New Democrats passed stable funding legislation for the province's farm organizations.The farm lobby organization, which had 37,500 members last year and will likely surpass that number this year, is hoping to attract some of the farmers who ask for a refund of the annual fee set out in the legislation.
Under farmer registration legislation, farmers must submit a $150 cheque to one of two provincial farmer organizations, either the OFA or the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario. If farmers do not wish to support either organization, they can request a refund.
At last month's board meeting, directors debated whether names of farmers requesting refunds should be made available to county directors who would then know which farmers in their county could be approached during recruitment.
The OFA hopes "Campaign 10 Plus" will increase membership and funding, increase county federation income, help inform non-members of OFA's accomplishments and express appreciation to members.
"OFA could learn from why these people are withdrawing their 150 bucks," said Lambton director Dave Smith. "If we don't know why they're pulling their memberships, we're not going to learn anything."
"Some people who ask for that refund want to make a point and they should be heard," said Jim Reith, Middlesex North.
OFA president Tony Morris asked the board if it would be appropriate to provide these names to directors after they've declined membership. As of July 31, more than 44,000 farmers had registered with the OFA, and 8,522 or just over 19 per cent had declined membership and requested refunds. Morris said roughly 2,000 of the registrations are duplicates from farmers who operate more than one farming business, leaving 6,000 potential new OFA members.
Each OFA director will be asked to recruit 10 new OFA members between December, 1997 and March, 1998. The federation hopes to recruit 860 new members, which would generate an additional $86,000 in funding for OFA and $34,000 for county federations.
Many directors, however, were wary of trying to recruit members who have opted not to support the organization and ask for a refund.
Jack Stafford, a long-time federation member who's travelled many miles to recruit OFA members on the concessions, said he was "a little scared" by the approach. He said farmers who have asked for refunds are "going to get their bristles up on their back and you're going to be told where to go".
Niagara's Gary Davison pointed out that the number of farmers requesting refunds has decreased during the first three years of farmer registration. OFA's refund rate has dropped from 21 per cent in the first year of the program to 19.3 per cent this year. Davison said the OFA is gaining momentum, and a vote to release the names of farmers asking for refunds could reverse the trend.
But several board members including Brant county's Larry Davis said directors can be trusted to use some discretion when recruiting new members. "People in the county know best what door not to knock on," Davis said.
The OFA will look closely at the legislation before sanctioning the campaign, Morris said.
Royal puts Ontario on the menu
The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair will have a special flavour this year, in celebration of 75 years of bringing agriculture to the heart of Toronto. The "Taste Ontario" program, a joint effort of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the Royal, is designed to highlight the wide array of Ontario food products.At the Royal, the Taste Ontario booth will feature daily cooking demonstrations by chefs from Toronto hotels using Ontario-produced food. Farm commodity groups will have informational displays.
"Made in Ontario" cuisine will be featured at the estimated 35 participating Toronto hotels during the week of the fair.
A Taste Ontario contest will be held in the Toronto area in the weeks before the Royal, promoted through media in the Toronto area. The grand prize will be a "Royal Weekend" for two in Toronto during the fair.
"The Royal's special anniversary celebration is a perfect venue for us to showcase the incredible selection of food and food products grown in Ontario," says OFA President Tony Morris.
The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair and Taste Ontario run Thursday, Nov. 6 to Saturday, Nov. 15 at Exhib-ition Place in Toronto. - CS
Urban tax base helps farmers on the fringe
By BERNARD TOBIN
After years of farming in the urban shadow, Burlington dairy farmer Murray Harris says provincial tax changes are shedding some light on his property tax predicament.Beginning Jan. 1, farmers will give up their Farm Tax Rebate in return for a revamped tax system that will require them to pay 25 per cent of the former rate. But many farmers are still trying to determine if they will be paying higher residential rates to offset potential municipal revenue shortfalls due to provincial downloading of services.
Last January, the Conservatives announced that the province would take over responsibility for funding education while local governments would have to pay for a host of services including welfare, policing and long- term health care.
The deck of cards from which local governments will draw responsibility for funding services has been shuffled several times since the first announcement, but Harris believes his tax bill will shrink when the government unveils the final pieces of the tax puzzle.
Farmers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) have had to endure creeping urbanization, which has gobbled up plenty of good farmland over the years. But all those city folk living in what use to be the country hold the key to lower taxes for Murray Harris. "We were getting totally beaten up before" the tax changes, Harris says.
"As a farmer in the GTA, I feel my net taxes are going to be significantly lower than they were before," he says. Thanks to market value assessment and combining of land class factors in his area, Harris' assessment has dropped by 40 per cent.
"Downloading may be positive because we'll get the spending being done by the people who are most accessible to the electorate....When you know where your local member of council is every Monday and Wednesday night, you can go and yell at them," Harris says.
Last month, the province announced that municipalities surrounding Toronto would have to help pay social welfare costs in the capital city. Harris, who points out that he didn't vote Conservative in the last provincial election, says he doesn't expect welfare expenses to add much to his tax bill, due to the large assessment base surrounding Toronto.
Harris points out, however, that smaller rural municipalities could be squeezed by tax changes because they don't have the assessment base to pay for the responsibilities they've inherited.
Provincial Agriculture Minister Noble Villeneuve says taking the cost of education off property tax will allow municipalities to pay for their new responsibilities such as ambulance and policing.
Villeneuve says rural municipalities will do fine if they join the province's belt-tightening plan and reduce their spending by two per cent. Municipal politicians, however, say they've already cut what they could and the loss of provincial grants creates even more problems.
"There's going to be some winners, no doubt about it, and with reassessment and restructuring, some municipalities will be pinched," Villeneuve says. "We're there to help balance that with the $570 million [reinvestment fund] plus the $800 million in capital restructuring over three years."
But both provincial opposition parties and municipalities say it's time for the government to put the money on the table and tell municipalities how they can get it. Liberal agriculture critic Pat Hoy says if the government really intends to allocate these funds, it's time to show municipalities the money so they can begin to prepare budgets for 1998.
Blooming flower business is coming up roses
By CHRISTINA SELBY
At the end of a quiet, suburban street on the edge of Burlington is a greenhouse operation which is flourishing in Ontario's blooming floriculture industry.Aldershot Greenhouses Ltd. was founded in 1954 by Arie Vander Lugt. Since then, it has grown to a three-site business consisting of 400,000 square feet under glass. The 80 full and part-time employees are part of the 11,000 people employed by the floriculture industry in Ontario.
Flowers are big business in Ontario. According to Statistics Canada, floriculture is the third-largest cash crop in Ontario, worth $442 million in 1995, just behind corn at $471 million, with soy leading at $590 million.
Aldershot Greenhouses' three sites, two in the former village of Aldershot, which has been absorbed into the suburban growth of Burlington, and one in Waterdown, produce potted miniature roses and potted chrysanthemums, with roses representing 75 per cent of production.
"Potted mums really saw their hey-day in the 1970s," says Henry Vanderlaan, operations manager. While production was originally various cut flowers, with an emphasis on potted mums, the change-over to potted roses came in 1990, around the time Arie Vander Lugt sold the operation to his son, Len.
Vanderlaan says the market for potted roses is growing. "Hopefully, we haven't reached the peak." While the market peaks for Valentine's Day, there is growth potential in the Christmas and American Thanksgiving markets. "It's become a real popular item with the garden centres and people are more interested in the perennials as of late than annual."
The varieties produced by Aldershot come from Poulsen Rosr ApS, a Danish breeder, which licenses Aldershot to grow its varieties, for which Aldershot pays royalties. Poulsen Rosr varieties were chosen for their shelf life, quality, and disease-resistance, including mildew.
"When you talk about a miniature rose, they're not forgiving. You have to pay attention to them. If consumers are not as vigilant as they should be, we need to allow for that," says Vanderlaan.
According to Flowers Canada, the advisory association for the industry, 15 per cent of floriculture operations control 80 per cent of the industry, and Vanderlaan would definitely put Aldershot in that 15 percentile for potted miniature roses.
Vanderlaan says Aldershot has only two major competitors in Ontario and strives to stay ahead of them both: "Europe is about 10 to 15 years ahead of us in terms of growing techniques, greenhouse technology, robotics, so Len makes a point of, a couple of times a year, travelling to Europe to see what's new, what's out there," he says.
Aldershot has robotic equipment imported from Holland for filling and moving pots. "We couldn't do the volume without the robotics," says Vanderlaan. Greenhouse environment is controlled by a computer system; sensors hang above the racks of flowers, gauging humidity, temperature and air movement, and controlling when and how much to water, and how much light or shade to give the flowers.
In 1996, Canadian flower operations sold $190 million worth of flower products to the U.S., with Ontario providing about 50 per cent, according to Flowers Canada. Vanderlaan says 45 to 65 per cent of Aldershot's production goes to the U.S., depending on the product and the time of year. The company exports to Florida, the eastern seaboard, including Boston and New York, and as far west as Minnesota. Half goes to direct sales, mainly to supermarkets, and the other half to wholesalers.
To sell to supermarket chains, the company must maintain certain North American standards and Universal Product Codes (UPCs) set by the Floral Marketing Board, a U.S.-based industry advisory board consisting of flower growers and buyers from various supermarkets.
Conforming to these standards is voluntary but "buyers will order 50 cases of ABC item, UPC code, FMA standard, so we know what they want," Vanderlaan says. Aldershot does not have different grades of product - "It's either good and goes to the market or it's bad and it doesn't," he says.
Prices drop in the winter because demand is low. "We have to push our prices down to make it more attractive for [customers] to buy," he says. "You're not going to get $5 for a four-inch rose when the market will only bear $2.50 or $2.75 at the best of times."
Production costs are much higher in the winter. With shorter daylight hours and cold, power consumption soars during the winter months. Roses require 24-hour light during propagation.
"We're a weekly grower, so we have to maintain our levels of production whether the market is good or bad," Vanderlaan says. Cuttings which are propagating now come from a crop sold four weeks previously, he explains.
Aldershot does increase production for Valentine's Day, however, employing long-cycle production. Over-production is put outside to harden up. In December, it is brought inside and is ready for sale by February.
The market picks up from Valentine's Day and "carries on strongly right through until the end of June," says Vanderlaan.
Hay! There's money in horses
If you're looking for new markets for hay, oats or straw, look no further than your neighbour who keeps horses.The 1996 Ontario Horse Industry Report, by Robert Wright and Jim Cation of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, was based on surveys completed by organizations from racing stables to local riding schools.
The report estimates the horse population of Ontario at 293,000: 265,000 in the non-racing sector of the industry, and 28,000 in the racing sector. Total annual expenditures is estimated at $567 million.
The largest percentage of expense is in boarding fees, 30.8 per cent in racing, 45.8 per cent in non-racing, including the cost of stall rental, feed, bedding and basic care.
The horse industry spends $36 million a year on bedding. The racing side use more straw than shavings, and recycles the straw bedding to save the cost of having it hauled away, up to $100 a tonne. Used straw goes to mushroom growers, who won't use shaving-based bedding, according to Wright.
Shavings are less labour-intensive, however. The non-racing sector uses $26 million in shavings a year, much of which is imported from New Brunswick and Quebec. Wright says only a few companies in Ontario produce the long planings preferred for horse bedding.
The horse industry spent $7.7 million on oats and $76.9 million on hay in 1996, but there is clearly a market opportunity for Ontario growers. According to Statistics Canada, Ontario produced only $6.3 million of oats and $5.16 million of hay and clover in 1995.
Hay for the horse industry is different from cattle hay, says Stan Young, secretary of the Ontario Hay Producers Association. "If it isn't green, they don't want it," says Young. Cattle require high-protein, first-cut hay, whereas horses can't process anything higher than 13-per-cent protein. Horse buyers will accept later cuts, with alfalfa and grasses, which they prefer, in full bloom, he says.
Horses are more sensitive than cattle to micro-organisms and mould, which can cause lung difficulties. Green hay which has not been dried out in the field will be presumed by horse industry buyers to contain fewer of these irritants. Young emphasizes that there is no such thing as dust-free, mould-free hay, but green is best for the horse industry. The payoff for hay growers is that horse people on average pay $10 to $20 per tonne more than cattle producers for their hay. They also prefer small bales, 35 to 50 pounds, as opposed to cattle producers who prefer 50 to 70-pound bales.
Feed costs for the racing sector are, on average, $510 per horse as opposed to $393 in the non-racing sector. Race-horse bedding, at $132 each, is overall $10 more than non-racing. - CS
Couch potatoes eat up new Foodland Ontario TV ads
By CHRISTINA SELBY
The logo is the same but Foodland Ontario has revamped its message for the '90s. The new theme is "Invite Ontario Home for Dinner" and the new television commercial premiered in living rooms across Ontario on July 16.The campaign's $2.2-million budget "buys a chunk of TV time now until the end of October and includes radio and posters," says Jon Hamilton, communications assistant, Ontario ministry of agriculture.
Also included in the bill are market research and production costs for the ads, created by the Gingko Group, which handled last year's $450,000 "Rumours" campaign for Ontario Pork.
The old Foodland television ads, which had been running since 1990, had reached saturation point and were no longer effective. "The message becomes ingrained and people just flip the channel," says Hamilton.
Reed Barrett, retail marketing supervisor for Foodland Ontario says the Foodland logo will stay the same, as surveys show 80 per cent of consumers recognize it. The logo "combines a deep-rooted traditional thought with a strong call to action for shoppers," he says.
The emphasis of the campaign is on variety, freshness and high quality. "There is an inherent belief that local is better," but Ontario shoppers need to be reminded, says Barrett.
"Distinguishing Ontario's top-quality products from Chile's or California's or any number of other countries that ship to Ontario and Canada is an important part of maintaining and improving the competitiveness of the agri-food sector," says Hamilton.
The ad campaign provides Ontario producers, processors and retailers with a "moment in the sun", says Agriculture Minister Noble Villeneuve. "When the agri-food sector prospers, all of Ontario benefits."