CALGARY – Changes to the Canadian Wheat Board structure will be watched but probably won’t have much effect on how Prairie Pools Inc. does business.
Newly elected prairie pool chair John Pearson said the Oct. 4 announcement by federal agriculture minister Ralph Goodale shows Goodale is traveling the middle of the road and that route may be the safest.
“It’s critical that the change be started. Western Canadian grain marketing is a little too fragile to allow wholesale changes that would affect the marketplace drastically,” he said.
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Overall changes proposed, like early termination of pooling accounts and promises of earlier payments, should lead to good things, he said.
“I think those are good things for farmers and they should be good things for grain handling organizations,” he said. “If farmers are healthy and stronger financially, generally grain companies are doing better also.”
Pearson is also confident changes to the wheat board act will allow the agency to respond sooner to changing world markets. In the past, the board hasn’t offered enough freedom to farmers, he said.
“The wheat board has done a very credible job most of the time in the past. They’ve offered good value for money.”
“The role of the wheat board is offshore, outside of Canada’s international boundaries and they can play a very strong role with some moderate changes to their structure and some other enhancements,” he said.
As for another barley plebiscite, Alberta oriented Pearson explained it is prairie pool policy that major changes to any market be taken to a vote.
“We’re in the business of handling and marketing grain,” he said.
” That’s our business and we have to stick very closely with it. Our business (in Alberta) may not be to take a high profile in terms of supporting farmer issues. In many cases farmers have to decide those issues for themselves.”
