Ruling party supports eliminating board, freeing up trade

By MATTHEW WEAVER

Capital Press

The Canadian Wheat Board announced this week that a majority of farmers had voted to maintain the single-desk marketing system.

Of the 38,261 farmers who submitted mail-in ballots, 62 percent favored retaining the system for wheat and 51 percent favored it for barley. The participation rate was 56 percent. The vote was nonbinding.

"Farmers have spoken," Allen Oberg, chairman of the CWB directors, said in a press release. "Their message is loud and clear and the government must listen. They cannot be ignored."

The Canadian parliament is expected this fall to take up a proposal to do away with the board.

"We will not sit back and watch this government steamroll over farmers," Oberg said. "We are going to stand our ground and fight for farmers."

Blair Rutter, executive director of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, supports changing the wheat board to a voluntary marketing organization.

"Anybody that sells wheat or barley for milling or malting purposes or for export has to deliver to the wheat board," Rutter said. Wheat for domestic feed or ethanol feedstock can bypass the wheat board.

The association believes farmers would get higher returns and have greater flexibility in delivery, storage and receiving payments under an open market.

The association recommended that farmers not participate in the vote, he said.

"We find offensive the whole notion you're not free to sell your own property," he said.

Without the monopoly, wheat will move back and forth across the U.S.-Canadian border more freely, said Steve Mercer, director of communications for U.S. Wheat Associates. U.S. producers would find more opportunity to sell their wheat in Canada, and vice versa.

Mercer said that currently the monopoly can offer different prices to different customers for basically the same class of wheat. This distorts trade, he said.

"Our customers know how much our wheat is at all times, they can make that choice," Mercer said.

Rutter said legislation will likely be introduced in Parliament in early October. He believes it's "close to 100 percent" likely the change will be approved, as the Conservative Party, which supports the legislation, holds a majority.

Tom Mick, CEO of the Washington Grain Commission, said a meeting will take place in November among northern-tier states regarding the potential change.

Online

Canadian Wheat Board: www.cwb.ca

Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association: www.wheatgrowers.ca

U.S. Wheat Associates: www.uswheat.org

Washington Grain Commission: www.wawg.org