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By Dale Lathim
I hope everyone had a great summer and is finishing up a productive crop year. Over the past few years, I have written about a variety of subjects relating to rising costs of production, seed selection and overall industry trends. However, one very important topic I haven’t covered for a while is why you should be a member of the Potato Growers of Washington, Inc.
For those of you who are already members, we thank you and hope you recognize that we are doing all that we can to make this a better and more profitable industry for all growers. Your support helps us tremendously.
At a recent meeting, however, someone asked me why they should become a member. Before I could answer, another grower answered for me by replying, “Why would you not be a member?” When it was my turn to speak again in that conversation, these are the points I shared.
First, as a member, you not only have a say in voting on whether to accept a contract proposal, but you also get input into the topics discussed at the bargaining table. Often, it takes a few years of battling the same issues to make any significant changes to the contract. If your concerns are not addressed, they potentially can be put off for years unless there are other members who experience the same issue.
Second, we are your voice in dealing with any questions or concerns regarding either the contract implementation by your processor or the grading of your potatoes by the third-party inspection service. Many growers have questions throughout the year but are hesitant to ask their processor or the graders. PGW members can ask me the question and I can either answer it outright based on my experience or I can ask the question in a way that neither the processor nor the inspectors would ever know who is asking and why. This completely protects your relationship with each party while getting you the answers you seek.
Third, as a member, you have access to the most up-to-date information about the industry. We have contacts within all the major processing companies, restaurant chains, exporters, growers in other regions and all of the grower groups around the country. As a result, we can be a one-stop source of information, whereas others have to pull together information from multiple other sources to form an opinion. We deal with this daily and have it at the ready; all you need to do is ask and we can provide you with the answer to most any question.
While there are many other reasons to be a PGW member, for the sake of space, I will stop at those for now and address a few of the common reasons growers give for not being a member.
The most frequent one is that since we changed the voting structure to weigh every vote by the volume each grower produced in the prior year, the organization is totally controlled by the large operations and other votes don’t carry any weight. While the facts in that statement appear to be correct, they are being taken somewhat out of context.
We changed the voting structure to volume rather than one person, one vote to protect the smaller grower. Prior to this change, smaller growers were being pressured by at least one processor into voting for the contract proposals in fear of losing their contract volume should the offer not be approved. This change immediately took the weight of the industry off several growers and they have thanked us multiple times for doing so. The targets are now on the backs of the large growers, who have a much better chance of standing up and protecting all growers than growers of any size would have had under the one-person-one-vote system.
Along this same line, growers need to remember, the big growers have similar wants and needs as the small growers, just on a bigger scale. During my years in the industry, I have found that the large growers often ask how things will impact the smaller growers before they ever vote on a contract proposal. Most of our large members are focused on the long-term health of the potato industry as they look not only to this year, but to generations to come.
Another reason I hear for not belonging is to avoid paying member dues when growers will get the contract price without paying a dime. It is correct that processors buy most of their potatoes on the contract that is negotiated with us for all of their growers, not just members. However, when you look at the cost of membership, if forgoing 13 cents per ton is going to make or break your operation, then by all means we understand and want you to protect your bottom line. But have you ever really considered how small the dues really are?
Back in 1988 and prior years, the dues were set at ½ of 1 percent of your gross dollars received. Growers would bring in copies of their settlement sheets and checks. The staff would then calculate the dues owed and the grower would write a check for the annual dues. Then in 1989, with the passage of the Agricultural Fair Practices Act, which required first handlers to withhold dues for the accredited bargaining association, ½ of 1 percent was calculated to be 35 cents per ton. That was the rate from 1989 through 2016. In 2017, we lowered the rate to the current 13 cents per ton, which now represents less than 0.00065 percent of the average contract price. Or another way of looking at it is 42 pounds of potatoes out of the 66,000 pounds produced on average.
While I know I am biased, I feel that being a PGW member is the best bang for the buck in the entire potato industry. Further, we have the most complete information available and have the most direct impact on your pricing of anyone industry wide. For a few pennies per ton, you can be an active part in shaping our industry not only for today but for the future.
