REGINA – The Canadian Wheat Board does a fine job selling high quality, high protein wheat and durum for good prices, says Barry Farr.
But the farmer from Lewvan, Sask., doesn’t speak nicely about the job the board has done when he’s been stuck with a pile of lower quality wheat to sell.
“In my experience the non-board price is always better and the board doesn’t do a very good job finding markets,” Farr told a meeting of the Western Grain Marketing Panel.
Farr wasn’t the only dual market supporter who linked his disenchantment with the board to the agency’s performance in selling low quality wheat.
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For Ben Huyde, it all started back in 1982, when disastrous weather left him with almost 10,000 tonnes of feed wheat.
He didn’t like the CWB price and sold it to another market for at least $400,000 more than he would have received from the board. Some of it ended up as CWB stocks as a result of elevator stock-switching.
Ever since, said the Norquay, Sask. farmer and businessman, he’s sold all of his wheat, including top quality, to non-board buyers, and has moved heavily into high yielding, unlicensed U.S. semi-dwarf varieties.
Board not helping
While those varieties are classified as feed in Canada, they can find a lucrative market south of the border, he said, adding the CWB has been unco-operative in arranging direct shipments to U.S. buyers.
“It’s a bureaucratic, uncaring system,” he said.
Wheat board commissioner Richard Klassen, who was on hand for the two days of hearings in a Regina hotel conference room, defended the board’s record in selling poor quality wheat.
Sold frozen wheat
In 1992-93 and 1993-94, the board sold large volumes of frozen wheat at “very attractive prices” to South Korea, the U.S. and other markets, he said, and reduced carryover stocks to extremely low levels.
He said farmers should understand that when weather results in an unusually high volume of feed wheat, the board often has to devise an entirely new marketing strategy, often on short notice.
“It’s not a problem for us,” he said. “It’s certainly a challenge.”
Farmers may get impatient and frustrated because it may take a while for the board to get its sales program up and running. But that’s more a problem of communication than reality, said Klassen.
Marketing panel member Bill Duke said the board sometimes gets blamed for price differentials which are more related to differences in grading standards between Canada and the U.S.
Allowing some export sales to be made on the basis of customer specifications rather than generalized grading standards might deal with some of those issues, he said.
