GrainsWest Fall 2019

Fall 2019 grainswest.com 37 Todd Hames farms north of Marwayne, growing spring wheat, canola, peas and the occasional field of silage corn or barley. Off a busier-than-ever Highway 16, Hames’s hauling options are above average. Within two hours he can choose to sell his grain to any of five companies. To his good fortune, he has rarely faced a serious discrepancy at the elevator, but that’s not to say it’s always been rosy. Last year, after growing a stellar crop of yellow peas, he trucked his pulses to a nearby elevator. His on-farm test showed this entire pulse harvest ranged between 15.5 and 16 per cent moisture. One can imagine the look on Hames’s face when sample probes displayed a very different reading of 16 to 17 per cent. He quickly found himself flirting with the line . “What I found difficult was when I shopped that sample around, I was getting a lot of testers agreeing with mine or close to dry, and [the grain company was] still testing 16.8 or something like that … at least 16.5,” he said. At such an impasse, farmers have very limited recourse. Hames’s three additional independent tests all returned readouts no higher than 16.0, so he played his hammer and very farmer will experience it at some point. Making a grain delivery at their local elevator, a sinister sample downgrades the entire load of a crop so dutifully grown. The hit on a farmer’s pocketbook may lead to greater issues with elevator managers, grain companies and ultimately, the system itself. Often, disputes circle back to what’s written in a grain contract and what’s in the truck on delivery day. What does the fine print truly say and what recompense does a farmer have, if any? E ADES