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Grain Farmers of Ontario is the province’s largest commodity organization,
representing Ontario’s 28,000 barley, corn, oat, soybean and wheat farmers.
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Ontario Grain Farmer Magazine

Government Intervention in Rail Strike is a Step in the Right Direction

Grain season could see several negative consequences from any continued work stoppages

Grain Farmers of Ontario, the province’s largest commodity organization, representing Ontario’s 28,000 barley, corn, oat, soybean and wheat farmers, thanks the Canadian government for their intervention to keep talks continuing and hopes this results in a quick return of rail service.

“We need to keep grain moving. Farmers rely on a healthy transport system to move grains both domestically and to international export markets. If rail is not available to farmers and the agricultural industry, it will put a lot of pressure on the full transport system,” said Jeff Harrison, Chair, Grain Farmers of Ontario. “This has been a tough year for farmers, with uncertain weather negatively affecting our planting season, higher costs that are building beyond our control, including the increasing carbon tax, fertilizer tariffs, and more. We need to see this strike come to a conclusion as soon as possible.”

Estimates show the combined impacts on Canadian grain farmers due to a work stoppage will be between $40 million and $50 million a day for the next two months.

Grain Farmers of Ontario was alerted to pre-emptive stoppages of much-needed inputs into Canada over the past week. Some grain elevators have already had to stop shipment of Ontario food-grade soybeans to prepare for the strike. More than one million bushels of soybeans are to be shipped between now and September 15.

“If we don’t ship those soybeans in the next month, we will have very compromised storage for this year’s harvested soybeans beginning in September,” said Harrison.

Additional concerns surround the increased costs of switching to trucking for shipping and how farmers will be able to recoup those costs, as well as the delays caused by stoppages – previous transport stoppages have shown that one day lost will take a week to recover from.

Contact:

Victoria Berry, Director, Communications – 226 820-6641; vberry@gfo.ca

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Grain Farmers of Ontario
Grain Farmers of Ontario is the province’s largest commodity organization, representing Ontario’s 28,000 barley, corn, oat, soybean, and wheat farmers. The crops they grow cover over 6 million acres of farm land across the province, generate over $4.1 billion in production value, result in over $27 billion in economic output and are responsible for over 90,000 jobs in the province.