Ballots will be in the mail next week for Ontario’s growers of cut flowers, potted plants, bedding annuals and “propagative plant materials” to vote on a proposed mandatory checkoff to fund Flowers Canada (Ontario).
The group has applied to the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission (OFPMC) to be recognized as the official representative association for greenhouse floriculture growers in Ontario, and for authority to collect a mandatory checkoff based on members’ greenhouses’ square footage.
OFPMC will conduct the vote and send mail-in ballots to all known greenhouse floriculture growers producing on 20,000 square feet or more, starting Monday (Jan. 7).
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The commission said in a release Thursday that eligible growers who don’t get a ballot by Jan. 10 should call the OFPMC office (519-826-3395). Eligible growers must have been growing on 20,000 sq. ft. or more as of Dec. 31, 2007. Returned ballots must be postmarked no later than Jan. 23.
The proposed checkoff would take the form of an annual license fee of two cents per square foot, to a maximum of $13,000 (650,000 sq. ft.).
The commission’s single question asks growers if they’re in favour of Flowers Canada (Ontario) becoming their association, and in favour of paying the annual license fee in order to “finance the association’s activities to stimulate, increase and improve the producing or marketing of greenhouse floriculture products in Ontario.”
FCO said on its web site that its application will need the support of at least 66.6 per cent of producers representing at least 50 per cent of the eligible acreage in order to pass.
It also noted that the proposed fee structure is meant to spread the load and is less than what FCO members pay currently.
“For too long the load has been carried by only 135 growers for the benefit of the other 600,” the group said in a fact sheet on the site. “Taxes, pesticides, border access, fair share of CAIS and COP payments, regulatory environment — they all cost dollars and require resources to manage.”
But FCO stressed that the vote will not make it the regulatory body, just the representative body, for Ontario floriculture. It also stressed that the association will not take in growers of nursery stock, perennials or biennials grown for planting into the soil outdoors and which overwinter.
FCO asked members with questions to contact its office or one of the board members on either FCO or the Ontario Greenhouse Alliance (TOGA, the sister organization for greenhouse vegetable, pepper and flower growers).
“Get the correct information — not misinformation in the coffee shop,” the group said on its site.
