A recent meeting between the Bruce County Federation of Agriculture and the Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority appears to have made some progress.
Federation President Les Nichols says his members felt there was a disconnect between the Authority and farmers that was causing problems on a number of fronts.
Following the meeting, Nichols says he's cautiously optimistic they're headed in the right direction.
However, he points out it's taken a long time for the situation to get to this point so he expects it will take some time to get it to the point where it's workable for both sides.
One of the ideas they're looking into is the establishment of an ag advisory committee to help the Authority keep its lines of communication with farmers open.
"To have some sort of ongoing communication between the ag community in general, not necessarily just the federation, and the Saugeen Board so each other knows what's going on. They were quite open - that's actually within the Conservation Act to have that type of committee." says Nichols.
Nichols says the two sides will get together again sometime over the next few months to follow-up on discussions from this month's meeting.
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Bruce Federation President Les Nichols says they've recently had discussions with the SVCA over farmers' concerns.
[audio mp3="http://blackburnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/SVCA-Nichols-1.mp3"][/audio]
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Nichols says the two sides discussed a number of issues at a meeting earlier this month and ways to address those concerns.
[audio mp3="http://blackburnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/SVCA-Nichols-2.mp3"][/audio]
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Nichols suggests a recent meeting between the federation and the Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority has established the groundwork for dealing with farmers concerns.
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