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GRAIN FARMERS OF ONTARIO
2016 ANNUAL REPORT
MAINTAINING AND BUILDING
strong
relationships within the broader agricultural
industry, with the public, and with government
representatives has never been more
important. Over the past year, we have utilized
these relationships to meet the strategic
goals of our organization and to deal with
the challenges of an ever-changing market
place.
Establishing a partnership with SGS Canada,
a global inspection and testing company, led
to the building of the Grains Analytical Testing
Laboratory. This is the first time in Canada a
producer organization and a private company
have joined to develop a laboratory of this
nature. The lab will provide information on
the quality of Ontario cereal crops that will
enhance our reputation with domestic and
international millers and processors. In the
future, the lab will provide quality testing for
the other crops Grain Farmers of Ontario
represents as well.
The development of this lab is very timely.
There is more demand from consumers to
know more about their food and the lab will
help provide the information processers and
end users want to provide their customers.
We are in a new world in terms of consumer
attitudes and our social license to farmdepends
upon how well we communicate who we are
as farmers, the quality and healthfulness of
the crops we grow, and why we use the
technology we do to grow these crops. This
has been at the core of our communications
activities this year which have continued to
increase our presence on social media and
make new connections with urban media.
Within the agriculture industry we have also
strengthened ties with other commodity
organizations to form broader coalitions to
address our common concerns. This includes
issues such as the Business Risk Management
(BRM) program. We need to ensure farmers
across Canada have decent safety nets. To
that end, significant effort has been put
towards the new federal Agricultural Policy
Framework (APF). An APF designed to provide
strategic investments in Ontario grain and
oilseed farming will help farmers realize
economic opportunities for Canada and
support farmers' contributions to Canada's
climate change goals. Grain Farmers of Ontario
has been coordinating efforts to ensure the
new APF meets the needs of producers and
provides the right investments for broadening
market access and advancing crop research.
There has been no shortage of government
relations issues to focus on over the past
year. Many of them involve the challenge of
addressing consumer concerns about farming
froman environmental perspective. As farmers,
we know that we are stewards of the land
and working to improve our sustainability
initiatives will show consumers we take this
role seriously. Another example of a broader
coalition is at the national level where we are
involved with the Canadian Roundtable for
Sustainable Crops — a group looking to
create a national program that covers all crop
commodities. At the provincial level, we are
addressing the issue of phosphorous levels
in the Great Lakes with our involvement in
the 4R nutrient stewardship program. This
program has helped us to form good
relationships with not only the government
but environmental organizations as well.
This is the first year grain farmers are working
under the new regulations restricting the sale
and use of neonicotinoid corn and soybean
seeds. Grain Farmers of Ontario attempted to
delay the implementation of these regulations,
but our court case was dismissed and our
appeal was denied. We were disappointed
with the outcome of our legal proceedings
and we aren’t giving up on the issue just yet.
We are now focusing on the impact of these
regulations. BDO, one of the leading accounting
and advisory firms in Canada, has been
commissioned to provide a third party
assessment on the true impact of these
regulations on our farmer-members. The
results will be used in the future to help
mitigate decisions about other potential
restrictions by showing the cost to farmers
with hard numbers.
Despite being at odds with the Ontario
government over the implementation of the
neonicotinoid regulations, we continue to
work with the provincial government on other
issues and BRM and phosphorous are examples
of that. Frankly, business with both levels of
governments carries on.
We have not achieved everything that we
would have wanted on behalf of our farmer-
members; that said, we have accomplished
a lot over the past year and we maintain a
positive outlook for the future of the Ontario
grains industry. We thank our farmer-members
for their continued support of the work we do
on their behalf.
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Mark Brock, Chair
BarrySenft, CEO
Chair and CEO
Message
MARK BROCK, CHAIR (LEFT) AND
BARRY SENFT, CEO (RIGHT)