Canada’s agriculture minister began his day Aug. 1 seeing Tweets and Facebook posts about the beautiful blue sky across Western Canada.
The sky had not fallen a year after the CWB monopoly ended, Gerry Ritz told farmers gathered at a Pense, Sask., farm to mark the anniversary. Hearing from producers was a good way to start the day.
“We’re seeing wheat and barley producers earn close to 20 percent more from the marketplace than they did in the last year of the wheat board, 2011,” he said.
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“We’re seeing an average of seven percent increases in wheat in Year 1 and 23 percent in barley.”
Production of the cereals is expected to increase with an additional two million acres of wheat seeded this year, and the minister said getting those back into crop rotations has invigorated Western Canada as a producer of wheat, durum and barley.
He admitted his main concern a year ago was how the grain handling and transportation system would perform.
“A lot more grain moved right off the combine than we ever saw before,” he said.
“Rather than dribs and drabs of quotas going into the system, we had a tsunami of grain right off the combine.”
Ritz said the system handled it well, and that’s because line companies and railways, not farmers, were on the hook for demurrage and storage bills.
He said malt barley growers are dealing directly with American breweries, and he has heard of some three-year contracts.
“That’s called cash flow,” he said.
“Those are the types of things that wouldn’t have been allowed in the bad old days.”
Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association president Levi Wood, at whose family farm the celebration took place, said the move to an open market had exceeded his expectations.
“It’s been a smooth transition and as farmers we have reaped the benefits of higher wheat prices, improved cash flow and greater control over our own personal business cycles,” he said.
Wheat growers can actually participate in market rallies now, he said, and new buyers are increasing competition and improving market options.
Wheat has re-established itself as a viable crop on his family farm, Wood added.
“We’d almost removed wheat from our rotation a couple of years ago,” he said.
Marilyn Braun-Pollon, Canadian Federation of Independent Business vice-president for the Prairies and agri-business, said a member survey this spring showed 74 percent of respondents experienced no negative impacts as a result of the changes.
Most appreciated the ability to manage cash flow and market grain when it suited them, she said.
The survey results were released today and also note that about two-thirds of farmers appreciate better market signals, more competition and increased cash flow. The CFIB has 7,200 agri-business members, including farmers.
Meanwhile, Ritz said there is still work to do.
The legislation passed to make grain handling and transportation more transparent and user friendly will be monitored.
“We’ve pledged that we will reassess if it should be needed,” Ritz said.
His department is continuing work on further changes to the Canadian Grain Commission in terms of variety registration and looking at how UPOV 91 could be passed to put Canada in line with other countries.
UPOV 91 is an international designation that would extend plant breeders’ rights to a minimum of 20 years.
Ritz also said CWB has not yet filed a privatization plan, but noted it does have until 2014 to do so.
He said CWB had a reasonably good year, with black ink on its bottom line, but he didn’t yet know its final sales figures.
