The federal government’s barley marketing plebiscite, whichever way it goes, will conquer the hopes of one group of farmers and will do nothing to bring peace in a divided industry.
If we accept the oft-touted line that farmers are businessmen, then as businessmen they should have the right to decide how and to whom to sell what they produce. For some, that choice is and will be the Canadian Wheat Board. Others want the chance to market off-board.
In deciding what works best for my farm, have I the right to decide for my neighbor, too? I would not presume to go onto my neighbor’s farm and tell him what crops to grow, on which fields, when to seed, what machinery to use, how much to pay his hired help.
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I would not tell him which elevator to haul to or where to bank his earnings.
How, then, can I decide for him how he should market his grain?
One could argue that, in a democracy, votes are held and the majority decision holds. That works where we have elections at reasonably set periods and where we know that next time around we’ll have a chance for a different outcome if we don’t like the choice this time.
There will be no such second, or third, chances with the barley plebiscite, however.
There is perhaps one glimmer of hope: this is not a binding vote.
Agriculture minister Ralph Goodale has said that, given a solid voter response, whatever that might be, he would be inclined to follow the wishes of the majority. Does this open the door a crack?
The minister’s option is choice between two extremes. There is a third choice, not on the ballot: a dual market.
We have been told time and again that a dual market won’t work, but do we know that for sure?
Where the will exists to do so, a lot of things can be made to work, and a dual market could be instituted on a trial basis for one or two crop years.
The stipulation, of course, would be that whatever choice a farmer makes at the start of the trial period would not be revokable for the whole trial.
By allowing this trial, minister Goodale would be doing three things: giving farmers the ability to choose the marketing system that best suits their own farms, end the divide and conquer mentality now rampant in the industry, and prove once and for all whether or not dual marketing can work, and decide which system works best for the majority of farmers.
