SASKATOON – Some of the barriers to trading flour between provinces may be gone by summer, said Canadian Wheat Board commissioner Richard Klassen.
“If we find those restrictions inhibit value-added industries, we’ll do everything we can to remove them,” Klassen told reporters after a forum on the future of the Canadian Wheat Board.
“I believe all the commissioners believe as I do, that if this is an unnecessary inhibiting factor, then we ought to do what we can to eliminate that barrier.”
During the forum held last week, Binscarth, Man., farmer and panelist Paul Orsak said farmers who want to mill their own wheat and sell the flour beyond provincial borders run into a wall of wheat board regulations.
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Wheat board rules allow farmers to mill their own wheat with their own mill. If they want to use another farmer’s wheat or sell the product in another province, they must deliver the grain to an elevator, have it graded and buy it back from the wheat board at a higher price.
Buying back is costly
Depending on the grade, buying back the wheat from the wheat board can cost farmers an additional $2 to $2.50 per bushel.
According to Glenn Pizzey, of Angusville, Man., those regulations have cost him thousands of dollars in lost sales. Pizzey and his wife, Linda, operate Country Ovens, a milling and baking company set up to diversify their 1,000-acre farm.
Last year’s poor weather turned a lot of the wheat into No. 3 or feed wheat. One of their granaries of wheat was graded feed, but would have made acceptable export milling wheat. A market was found to turn the $1.50 a bushel feed wheat into a mix equivalent to $21 a bushel, after processing. The sale was lost because there was no CWB quota on feed wheat.
“I had all my acres assigned to wheat, but no quota for feed wheat,” said Pizzey.
The new wheat board contracts also make it difficult to operate. It’s sometimes a gamble knowing how much wheat of each grade farmers should contract.
“All these little nitpicky things happen on the delivery side,” said Pizzey.
He said the wheat board needs to reexamine its mandate. “What it’s doing is at the expense of the rural economy.
“They’re destroying any attempt to diversify the rural economy in wheat products.”
