BISMARCK, N.D. – Canadian observers fidgeted and squirmed while U.S. politicians and farmers delivered a four-hour tirade against Canadian grain trading practices here last week.
“I’d just love to grab a mike,” said Len Rutledge, a farmer from Carievale, Sask. who attended the first of three International Trade Commission hearings into the impact of increasing Canadian grain exports into the U.S.
Rutledge was among a handful of Canadian farmers, representatives of farm organizations and grain companies who attended the hearing – just to watch.
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All had decided against making a formal presentation. The Canadian industry is co-operating with the Canadian Wheat Board for a presentation at the final ITC hearing in Washington April 28.
But as he listened to the long list of allegations against Canada’s grain marketing practices, Rutledge found it hard to stay quiet.
“It’s frustrating when the things used against us aren’t right,” he said. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”
That’s not what 25 delegations appearing before the commission contend.
As far #as U.S. farmers are concerned, there can be only one reason behind the increase in Canadian exports of wheat, oats and barley to the United States since the implementation of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in 1988.
The Canadian Wheat Board must be practising predatory pricing, and it’s to blame for low prices, a plugged elevator system, bankrupt farmers and lower acreages of durum and spring wheats.
“Is there injury? You couldn’t fail to find injury in a dark room with a blindfold,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan.
“I’d like you to imagine being a producer and seeing a foreign government in a truck line ahead of you selling wheat to your local elevator and taking a lower than posted price,” said Warren Affeldt, president of the Minnesota Association of Wheat Producers.
“Imagine unit trains filled with foreign grain roaring past your own grain bins headed for customers that should have been yours, given a closer market proximity,” he said. “Well, meet Canada, the garage-sale wheat exporter.”
North Dakota senator Kent Conrad testified that although the free trade agreement says countries shall not sell into each other’s markets at below cost, a loophole has allowed the Canadian Wheat Board to sell into the U.S. at “far below its true, full acquisition cost without violating the agreement.”
He said that’s the reason why Canadian exports of durum to the U.S. will top 800,000 tonnes this year, and all wheat exports will reach 2.5 million tonnes.
“An absolute flood tide of Canadian grain has poured into our market,” Conrad said. “This monopolistic entity, which has the ability to set the price it pays to producers, systematically undercuts U.S. prices.”
