The Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) is fighting back against proposed federal legislation that would put an end to the era of single-desk policy that gives the CWB a monopoly, requiring producers of wheat and barley to market their product solely through the board. The proposed legislation would take effect August 2012. The CWB announced on July 6 intentions to hold a plebiscite to poll western wheat and barley producers on the issue, a move that has been greeted with mixed reviews.
According to a press release from CWB, ballots will be mailed out next week to farmers who have grown wheat or barley in the past five crop years, and farmers will be asked whether they prefer the single-desk system or the open market.
The Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, which started in 1970 to advocate policy change for a more profitable farming industry, strongly opposes the plebiscite.
“We do not support it whatsoever,” said Kevin Bender, president of the organization. “We think it's a waste of money and wish that the wheat board would just accept what the government is going to do and start preparing for the future.
“We see so much more potential for prosperity for both farmers and the economy in general. We just see the benefits from the other crops that we grow and we'd like to see that for wheat and barley as well.”
He added, “Minister (of Agriculture and Agri-Food Gerry) Ritz has said that the wheat board's survey, plebiscite – whatever you want to call it – will have little effect on what they choose to do.”
The MD of Bonnyville voted at its last council meeting to send a letter to the federal minister in hopes of changing his mind.
“The information we got is that the wheat board is going to have this plebiscite but it doesn't sound like the federal government is going to ask for it,” explained Matt Janz, director of agricultural services for the MD. “So by us sending this letter to the agriculture minister, it's just going to say ‘please listen to the wheat board on what they're saying about holding a plebiscite, a legal plebiscite, and listen to the farmers and what they want.' If the majority of the farmers decide that they want to dismantle it the way it is now and to have an open market for everybody, than at least they got to decide their own future.”
For Gordon Graves, a local farmer who produces barley, the choice is clear. The positives of the CWB far outweigh the negatives.
“Anybody who thinks that they can do better business with the multinational than they can with the wheat board is smoking something illegal,” he said. “It doesn't work.”
He worries wheat and barley producers don't have the experience to market their product effectively, saying the government listened to “a few people who have never marketed a damn thing internationally” when they made the decision to end the single-desk system.
“They think they know how to do it,” he said. “They don't speak Mandarin Chinese, they don't speak Japanese, they don't speak Arabic. They've never been there and tried to negotiate a deal. They see the odd person going over and once in a blue moon hot a spike in the market and do well and say, ‘Jesus, we can have that all the time?' That's not reality.”
He explained the highs and lows of the marketplace don't favour skill in marketing, that profits are simply based on luck, and “the luck of the draw doesn't make you a better marketer.”
The CWB “evens the highs and lows out,” he explained.
“With the wheat board, everybody gets the same. It takes the guess work out of marketing.”
“I think the farmers should have a choice,” said MD Coun. Barry Kalinski, who is also a local farmer. “I think if they want to have a choice, let them have a choice.”
According to Brian Storseth, MP for Westlock – St. Paul, the government is not currently discussing whether CWB's monopoly should exist or not.
“The conversation that we as government are having with producers … is not about whether or not the monopoly should be here or whether it shouldn't,” he explained. “The position is how would you like to see things after August 2012? What changes would you like to see? What changes would you like to see not made?
“But at the end of the day, change is coming, and that is the position of our government, and that is the position of western Canadian producers and industry. I do believe that change will be coming and it is now an opportunity for producers and industry to sit down and liaise with members of Parliament to see what that change is going to look exactly like.”
