RED DEER, Alta. – When it comes to grain transportation reform, British Columbia feels forgotten.
Once protected by the feed freight assistance program, B.C. livestock producers pay about $10 more in freight for grain than export customers, says the chair of the provincial turkey marketing board.
“We think it is a travesty that the federal government ignores our pleas for equity on this issue,” said Dan Wiebe of Abbotsford.
The B.C. rate works out to about $32 a tonne for freight while grain being exported pays $22 to $25 a tonne. The province wants a rate more in line with that applied to export feeds.
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The B.C. agriculture council made submissions to the Estey grain transportation review, as well as the Arthur Kroeger meeting July 22 in Red Deer.
Wiebe asked the committee if B.C. would be eligible to get the same freight rate as is set for export grain.
Committee member Doug Livingstone told Wiebe that under the proposed commercially contracted system, there would be an arbitrator to settle differences.
He offered B.C. producers nothing beyond that.
Transportation rates for feed grains destined for export are capped through a provision in the Canada Transportation Act.
B.C. grain users said they are concerned the $10 per tonne spread between export and domestic grain will grow even wider.
Dairy, poultry and livestock producers are paying $6 million per year more than Canada’s export customers pay to move the same grain on the same railway lines.
Wiebe buys more than 6,000 tonnes of feed grain a year for about $160 a tonne. The Fraser Valley brings in about 600,000 tonnes of feed grain per year.
“We are a valuable customer for prairie grain but the government suggests we’re on our own.”
B.C. was protected by the feed freight assistance program , which ended along with the Crow Benefit subsidy in 1995. This program provided assistance to producers in feed-deficit areas to cover the cost of importing the grain to their area. The assistance was adjusted for distance.
A onetime payout of $60 million was granted when the subsidy was removed.
