Normal Farm Practices Protection Board chair steps down

Thursday, March 15, 2012

by SUSAN MANN

Ridgetown-area lawyer Glenn Walker is retiring as chair of the Normal Farm Practices Protection Board, ending an 11-year run as a member of its board.

First appointed in 2001, Walker served for three years as vice-chair and then chair for the rest of the time. He retires at the end of April. The board is searching for a new chair.

In the board’s most recent annual report for the April 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011 fiscal year, the ministry received150 nuisance complaints about farm practices. That’s up from 136 complaints during the April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010 fiscal year; but down from 176 complaints in the 2008/09 fiscal year and 203 in the 2007/08 fiscal year.

Established under the Farming and Food Production Protection Act, the board rules on matters related to farm practices. The Act protects farmers from nuisance complaints involving odour, dust, flies, light, smoke, noise and vibration provided they follow normal farm practices. It also protects farmers from municipal bylaws that restrict their normal practices.

During the summer of 2010 there was an increase in complaints about flies and dust in Southwestern Ontario, the report says. “The higher incidences of fly complaints (in 2010) apparently came from manure exposure.”

While smaller numbers of dust complaints have occurred every year during the past four years, flies, smoke, light and vibration are usually mentioned as secondary complaints associated with odour. During the past four years, complaints about municipal bylaws increased slightly.

Odour was the main cause of complaints in 2007/08 but since then noise causes more complaints about farming practices than any other disturbance, the report says.

Most of the 150 complaints in 2010/11were resolved by ministry agricultural engineers and environmental specialists, the report says. Three of the cases went to the board for a hearing, while four were carried over from the previous year for a total of seven cases. Of those, the board resolved one through a settlement conference and held hearings for the other six.

In three of the cases the parties reached an agreement during the hearing and the cases were withdrawn while the board gave decisions in three cases.

Walker says the number of complaints and the cases that ended up in a hearing for the 2011/12 fiscal year are both down compared to the previous year. Final numbers will be released after year end, which is March 31.

At the board’s annual meeting in Guelph Wednesday, members talked about how the very low number of cases that go to the hearing phase shows the conflict resolution process is working well, he says.

“It’s only a very small percentage of cases where the board has to make a decision and we’re pleased about that,” he says, noting that saves farmers and those filing complaints money.

Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Mark Wales says he hasn’t seen the 2010/11 report but he agrees that the low number of cases going to a hearing shows the process is working. But the one concern they’ve always had is about unnecessary complaints moving through to a hearing. Wales says he’s not sure if all of the hearings held in 2010/11 were necessary.

The board’s operating expenditures were $58,274.62 for 2010/11 and that’s about $5,000 higher than the $53,000 budgeted in the ministry’s annual business plan for 2010/13. The money to operate the board comes from the innovation engineering and program delivery unit of the agriculture ministry’s environmental management branch.

“The difference is due to a higher number of hearings than anticipated in the budget,” the report says.

In 2010/11, the board received one complaint about fairness in how it conducts itself and it is looking into that. The report also touched on the board’s operational performance noting that the standard of 20 days between receiving an application for a hearing and responding to the applicant was met. The standard of 60 working days to issue a decision from the time a hearing is completed was met in all but one case where it took 63 working days. BF