WINNIPEG – The Canadian Wheat Board needs to make changes to reward entrepreneurial wheat and barley growers, according to a farmer who helped revive interest in Glenlea wheat.
David Faurschou, who farms near Portage la Prairie, Man., told the Western Grain Marketing Panel hearings that he helps pay for a breeding program for the extra strong wheat.
Faurschou, named Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmer for 1995, said he knew there was strong demand for the wheat in frozen dough markets.
About seven years ago, he had some leftover Glenlea seed. He didn’t want to dump it into an elevator pit for a low price, so he talked to a few mills.
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One was ConAgra, which owns Pillsbury. Officials there expressed interest in using Glenlea because it can almost triple the shelf-life of its frozen dough products.
But when Faurschou talked to the wheat board, he ran into a roadblock.
“The response I received from the Canadian Wheat Board is, ‘Glenlea wheat is a dead horse, and there’s no point in flogging it any further, period,’ ” he told the panel.
Plant breeders at the Winnipeg Research Centre told Faurschou they couldn’t free up funding for research into a low-priority wheat. So he will contribute “six-digit figures” to the centre during the course of the variety’s research.
Faurschou told the panel the wheat board has made constructive changes in the past two years and has some good new staff to help with small, niche-market projects.
But, “even with today’s technology, it’s going to take seven to eight years” to get breeding improvements and farmers are missing out on a good market right now.
“We really missed the boat on this and it hasn’t been for lack of trying on (my) part.”
However, Faurschou said most farmers, including himself, could not afford the time or money it takes to market wheat as the board does on their behalf.
“The Canadian Wheat Board provides an excellent starting point with its infrastructure and reputation,” he said.
He made several recommendations for improvements to board operations:
- Designated points of delivery related to specific markets. For example, Glenlea produced in Manitoba will go to mills in the midwestern U.S. “I find it unpalatable that I should be required to pay St. Lawrence or Vancouver freight rates,” he said.
- Individual pool accounts for farmers who secure their own markets. Faurschou said this would reward farmers with superior marketing abilities and would encourage more specialized markets. However, farmers wouldn’t lose CWB benefits like currency exchange and account collection.
- A mandatory checkoff on wheat and barley, collected and distributed by the CWB. Faurschou said farmers pay for plant breeding when they buy seed, but as prices increase, “more and more of the seed industry is joining Canada’s underground economy.”
