Two
provincial politicians have joined the vegetable growers who are
alarmed by a proposal to strip the Ontario Processing Vegetable
Growers Marketing Board of its price-negotiating powers.
They
are asking the provincial agriculture minister to intervene to allow
more time for farmers’ comments, but Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal
says simply that if they don’t like what the Ontario Farm Products
Marketing Commission eventually decides, they can apply for
re-consideration.
After
re-consideration, he says he has the right to intervene.
Haldimand-Norfolk
MPP Toby Barrett, who
is the Tory opposition
critic
for
agriculture,
and Elgin-Middlesex-London MPP Jeff Yurek
made their pitch in an open letter to Leal last week.
“Proposing
major changes to processing vegetable marketing at the height of the
growing and harvest season is not the way to do things,” Barrett
said.
“Farmers’ priority is harvesting their crop, irrigation and
other direct crop-related matters, not responding to regulations that
could impact them.”
Barrett and Yurek met with processing vegetable growers recently on a farm near the Elgin-Norfolk county line.
“Why are farmers being asked to work on this during their busiest time of the year - extend the August 12th comment deadline to after harvest,” Yurek said.
For more information on the proposal, or to comment, visit the web site at http://www.ontariocanada.com/registry/view.do?postingId=22133&language=eng .
