Integrated
Farming Inc. has won its appeal to gain a licence to grow processing tomatoes
next year.
The Ontario
Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal has ruled that the Ontario
Processing Vegetable Growers marketing board had no justification for denying
the licence.
During the
hearing, general manager John Mumford testified that the joint venture between
grower Art DeBrouwer of Eau Road Farms and Highbury Canco Corp. is a ploy to
lower Highbury’s costs to acquire tomatoes.
But Highbury
president Sam Diab said the motive is to learn more about growing tomatoes, to
bring Highbury’s resources to the partnership and to enable Highbury to
advertise products as moving direct “from our fields”.
DeBrouwer called
it “a marriage made in heaven” because it would reduce his risks and holds
potential to increase his business as the joint venture succeeds.
The tribunal
ruled that Highbury does, indeed, contribute value to the joint venture, that
there is nothing in the board’s rules and regulations that precludes this joint
venture, that Highbury is justified in forming the joint venture rather than
contracting production from Eau Farms and wrote that it does not agree with the Board’s view
that the IFL joint venture would open the floodgates to other similar
arrangements.”
