When American farmers and ranchers are frustrated with Washington, the Canadian border is a good place to make their point.
Last week farm equipment and piles of grain blocked several border crossings along the North Dakota and Montana borders. A CP freight train was stopped in its tracks.
Organizers said they were trying to send a message to their federal government that farmers can’t survive on historic low commodity prices and rising input costs.
North Dakota livestock producer Merle Boucher, who was not at the border protest, said Canadian imports are a red flag for perturbed producers.
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Living 25 kilometres south of the international border near Rolette, Boucher can see truck after truck pass by carrying Canadian grain, hogs and cattle. When Americans match those imports to their current market situation, they get angry, he said.
“I don’t think any of the farmers have a personal vendetta with … Canada,” Boucher said. “They think the Canadian government may have gotten the better part of the (free trade) deal.”
Boucher, who is also the house minority leader in the North Dakota house of representatives, also blames the farm income situation on the major companies that control commodity trading. He said these companies don’t need Canadian supply. Imported cattle and hogs are using valuable American kill space, yet Americans are told there is an oversupply, he said.
“Then they can say supplies are tight,” he said. “They’re having their cake and they’re eating it too.”
Boucher said grain producers think free trade is not fair when Canadian barley enters the U.S. without a vomitoxin test, but their own barley is graded as feed if it contains greater than five parts per million.
And canola producers complain when chemicals not authorized for use in the U.S. can be used in Canada, and that canola enters their crushing facilities.
Deaf ear
Boucher said no one in Washington is listening to producers.
“We’re venting our anger on the visible things,” he said. “Farmers and producers on both sides have to start focusing their attention on the folks that are manipulating them.”
In Montana, cattle and sheep producer Dusty Deschamps is campaigning for Congress. He addressed the border protest at Sweetgrass Sept. 21.
In a later interview, he said he doesn’t blame Canadians either.
“I think it is Washington that’s let us down,” the Democratic candidate said.
“There’s no point in pointing a finger up to Canadians. They didn’t create these trade agreements. They didn’t create our packer concentration. They didn’t affect the international price of grain or anything. They’re just players doing the best they can under the circumstances and we need to be looking to Washington to solve our problems, not beating up on everybody else.”
That said, he does believe the Canadian Wheat Board is undercutting Americans on the world market. And he believes the board is dumping low-cost feed barley, which is fed to Canadian feeders that are purchased by American packers and slaughtered in the U.S.
“We’ve got similar problems with other countries. Probably the worst offender of the bunch is the European Union, but the United States seems to be kind of getting the short end of the deal on most of these international arrangements,” said the Missoula area farmer.
Desperate measure
Deschamps doesn’t condone South Dakota’s action of actually turning Canadian trucks back, but said producers have to get attention somehow.
“I think we need to take our case to the public and I think we need to take our case to the politicians. Frankly, it takes pretty radical measures to underline this stuff and protesting on the border is one way of doing it.”
American callers to an open-line radio show in Regina last week agreed the protests are a bid for attention.
“We’re kind of like an endangered species,” said Shelby, Mont., rancher Hank Zell. “We’re not on the endangered list, but we need to be.”
