N.C. ag group holding referendum in August

Jul 24, 2023

Tomato growers are being asked to weigh in on the $20 per acre assessment

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

Farmers in North Carolina will be participating in a referendum next month.

The North Carolina Tomato Growers Association will be asking producers whether or not the organization should continue collecting the $20 per acre assessment on harvested commercial tomatoes.

The North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services collects the assessment on behalf of the organization.

The Tomato Growers Association uses these funds to support industry research, education and programs to promote local tomatoes.

The industry generated more than $34.7 million in cash receipts in 2018.

Farmers in the state harvested 3,000 acres of tomatoes that year, USDA data shows.

So that means the organization would’ve received around $60,000 to use for its research and outreach initiatives.

The vote needs a two-thirds majority to pass.

If it does, the department of ag will continue to collect the assessment on behalf of the Tomato Growers and hand the funds over the organization’s board of directors.

This would be in place for the next six years beginning with the 2023 crop.

The Tomato Growers Association will mail ballots to farmers on Aug. 21. Farmers who don’t receive a ballot by Aug. 29 must contact Ellen Moss, the organization’s executive secretary, to receive one.

The ballots should be postmarked by 5pm on Sept. 26 and mailed to:

Ellen Moss
Executive Secretary, N.C. Tomato Growers Association
2491 St. Paul’s Road
Hendersonville, NC
28792

Farmers can also email Moss for more information.

Farms.com has contacted Moss for more details about the referendum and what happens if producers vote against the assessment.

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators