Highlights of this year’s Ontario processing vegetable growing agreements

by SUSAN MANN

The Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers board has reached agreements for most of the crops it negotiates on pricing and sales terms with processors.

Executive assistant Al Krueger says this year’s negotiations went fairly well. “Bonduelle is the big player” for peas, corn, beans and carrots. “We’ve been able to reach agreements in all of those crops either at or before the deadline so that’s always a good sign.”

Based on acreage, peas are the biggest crop the processing vegetable board represents followed by sweet corn and tomatoes, he says. Tomatoes have the highest farmgate value.
In 2013, tomatoes were grown on 11,618 acres and had a gross farm value of $34.4 million.

Tomato acreage numbers and gross farm value for 2014 haven’t been posted on the processing vegetable growers website yet. But preliminary numbers for 2104 show there were 85 tomato contracts and 384,452 tons were contracted. That’s down from 119 contracts and 508,923 tons contracted in 2013, the last full year Heinz operated the tomato processing plant in Leamington. After Heinz pulled out of the plant in 2014, a new company of investors and former managers formed Highbury Canco Corporation. It bought the Leamington operation and began co-packing for Heinz along with making some of its own products.

For green peas, all prices increased by four per cent this year compared to 2014. The maximum late harvest payment is now capped at $200 per acre. In 2014, there were 175 pea contracts and 17,050 acres were contracted.

For sweet corn, the price of $96 per ton is the same as last year. For both peas and sweet corn, Bonduelle has agreed to increase its contribution for research. In 2014, there were 126 sweet corn contracts and 11,322 acres were contracted.

The lima bean agreement with Bonduelle calls for prices to stay the same as last year. The price is $472.35 per ton.

Squash prices are up $2 per ton this year compared to last year. The price for hand-harvested squash is $140.50 per ton. All production will be hand harvested this year the same as in 2014, the processing vegetable board’s report on the squash agreement says.

Carrot prices for this year are up over last year, For dicers the price goes to $98.25 per ton compared to $96.50 in 2014, while for slicers the price is $127.75 per ton compared to $125.50 per ton in 2014.

The late delivery charge takes effect on Nov. 10 this year and is $1.75 per ton per day capped at $31.50 per ton per day. Previously the cap was $29.75 per ton per day.
 
Green and wax beans have been settled with no change in prices from last year. The prices are $214.94 per ton for small whole beans, $189.11 per ton for dual-purpose beans, $167.90 per ton for large cut beans, and $156.83 per ton for Romano beans.

For pumpkins there is no change in pricing this year compared to 2014.
 
There are no negotiated agreements for beets, cabbage or cauliflower as there aren’t any processors in Ontario processing those crops. BF