WASHINGTON, D.C. – A majority of members on the Canada – U.S. Joint Commission on Grains believe the Canadian Wheat Board should consider giving up its monopoly on exports into North America, said the American co-chair of the commission.
Jim Miller, speaking to an association of American grain trade companies Sept. 15, said the commission report to be published next week will be a “mandate for change” in the grain policies of the two countries.
In Canada, that should include fundamental changes to the wheat board, he said.
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Miller said all the U.S. commissioners and “at least a couple” of Canadian commissioners believe monopoly powers of the board should be reconsidered.
Two options that should be looked at are allowing farmers the freedom to sell elsewhere if they want, and allowing grain companies to compete with the board for export sales.
“This is one of the options that has some support,” Miller said. “There are other options. There is support from some Canadian commissioners for the recognition that change is going to occur to the wheat board.”
Miller said the Americans on the commission are united in their views on how to reform grain trade policies to reduce friction between Canada and the U.S.
The final report will include two key recommendations carried over from the interim report last summer – that the U.S. get rid of its export subsidy policy and that the Canadian Wheat Board be reformed.
“The key point (on the wheat board) is to make sure the board operates at the same level of commercial risk as a commercial venture,” said Miller, who also serves as vice-president of the National Association of Wheat Growers, which is aggressively anti-wheat board.
“We identify that as the risk of profit or loss, the same as the companies represented here.”
Miller was speaking to the fall meeting of the National Grain Trade Council.
He said he also would like to see the North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiated to make the Americas a “true free trade area.”
That would reduce the ability of either government to intervene with policies, like the wheat board monopoly, that can distort trade.
A new NAFTA should be written, said Miller, “to make it free and make it fair.”
