Farm business goes on despite the strike say farm groups

Thursday, June 2, 2011

by SUSAN MANN

Many farm organizations have alternate plans to ensure correspondence reaches its destination now that Canadian postal workers have started a series of rotating strikes across the country.

But the strike will still delay some mail and have an effect on farm families. Joe Dama, Ontario coordinator for the National Farmers Unions (NFU) says, “there’s still an awful lot of government mail that comes through the regular mail to individual farm families.”

It’s likely government program payments made through the mail will be delayed, he notes. Agricorp does some business online with some NFU members but the vast majority of correspondence is still done by mail.

Dama says the majority of farm families rely on the postal service for their correspondence, particularly older people in rural areas. “They’re not into this computer stuff as much as we think they are.”

NFU uses several different forms of communication to stay in touch with members, including email, phone, pages within a rural magazine, and other correspondence that’s sent by mail. But if the strike drags on “it’s going to hurt us,” Dama says.

Stephanie Charest, communications consultant with Agricorp, says they have a contingency plan in place to reach customers by courier, email, phone or fax depending on “the nature of the correspondence and the time sensitivity around things.”

Charest says Agricorp’s plan is “based on maintaining essential services and ensuring the impact is minimal on our customers.”

For production insurance, most customers pay their invoices either electronically or directly at financial institutions. Other farmers can use either of those two options. They can also use a courier to send in their payment or deliver it in person.

Acreage reporting is due June 30 and it can be done either online or over the phone. For AgriStability application forms, they are due June 30 and are available online.

Susan Murray, spokesperson for Ontario agriculture ministry, says during the strike the ministry has made plans to provide services to people through courier, email, fax or even in person. For anyone who has sent correspondence to the ministry recently and think it might be delayed in the mail, they should call the contact centre at 1-877-424-1300.

Murray says the ministry no longer uses mail for a lot of its correspondence so the effect of the strike will be minimal. The services the ministry still provides using mail can be offered through alternative methods.

Agriculture Canada’s information about the postal strike is at: http://agr.gc.ca/. There is a message on both the AgriInvest and AgriStability pages.

At Dairy Famers of Ontario, officials met Friday morning to discuss plans to ensure producers who get milk cheques by mail still receive them. Communications officer Karen Mantel says the 80 per cent of producers who get their payments deposited directly into their bank accounts won’t be affected by the postal disruption. But there are still 20 per cent of farmers getting cheques by mail and Dairy Farmers is looking at options to accommodate them if the series of rotating postal worker strikes continues into mid June. Producers get paid in the middle of the month.

As for transporter payments or the payments Dairy Farmers receives from processors, Mantel says much of that business is done electronically. For any businesses Dairy Farmers works with that aren’t on direct deposit monetary transfers, the organization is looking at options. Processor payments to Dairy Farmers are mainly made electronically but any companies that still use mail for payments have worked out alternate arrangements.

About the quota exchange, Mantel says the next time payments are due is June 30 “so right now quota payments aren’t as much of a concern.”

Lori Bona Hunt, University of Guelph spokesperson, says by email the university is taking precautionary measures to minimize the impact of the strike on its campus community.

Neil Currie, general manager of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, says a lot of their correspondence is done electronically. “So it’s not as bad as it used to be.”

Since postal workers are conducting rotating strikes that started with Winnipeg today and Hamilton workers poised to walk off the job next, the stirke won’t hurt the federation too badly. Most of the federation’s membership cards have already been mailed. “That’s our big mailing of the year to members,” he says, noting for bill payments and other administrative business matters the federation uses a lot of electronic methods.

At the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, general manager John Clement says they have to find another way to get material out for an upcoming provincial council meeting.  The reports were supposed to be mailed during the next week.

The federation will likely get the material out electronically and notify people of meetings by phone.

Most of the seasonal communication the federation does with members has already been mailed. “We tend to back off right now because of the time of year,” Clement says.

If the strike continued for a while, Clement says it would be an irritant. BF