VULCAN, Alta. – It is frustrating for some southern Alberta farmers when they scan their satellite market services and see farmers across the line quoted $1 a bushel more for wheat and barley.
Even though Canadian Wheat Board officials say few customers actually pay those higher prices, it still stings.
For farmers attending a wheat board information seminar here, some parts of the day were more like a rebuttal of the agency’s dealings this past year.
Commissioner Ken Beswick, once an Alberta farmer, attempted to dispel statements made against the board, but for Warner farmers Brian Otto and Myron Currie, responses from the wheat board were not good enough.
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Their farms are 40 kilometres away from the American border and while they say they have never circumvented the board, they’re frustrated and they believe they’re being shortchanged.
“I’ve never shipped grain to the states. I’m trying to do it through the legal system. I not one of these renegade farmers,” said Otto at the day’s end.
Checking daily market reports via computer satellite services since September, Otto said Montana cash prices for Harrington barley, even with freight penciled in, are about $1 a bushel better than what the board is paying.
“We’re not getting anywhere close to what we should for our malt barley,” said Otto.
The Great Falls, Mont. spot price for Harrington barley was quoted at $840 per cwt or $4.04 per bushel last week. With an exchange rate of $1.39 that barley delivered to Great Falls is worth $5.63 per bushel, said Otto. The pool return outlooks say barley is $4.34 after freight costs of about 40 cents a bushel.
Winter wheat returns
Otto and Currie also grow winter wheat. The board’s pool return outlook, an early estimate of what the board expects the final price to reach, is $5.40 a bushel while Great Falls is offering $6.72 (Cdn).
He also believes since winter wheat is considered a minor crop by the board, farmers should have the right to market it themselves.
“Let us do it, because obviously I’m giving up a dollar a bushel,” said Otto. He grew 45,000 bushels of winter wheat and 60,000 bushels of malt barley this fall.
“Figure out at a dollar a bushel how much money we gave up to the marketing system. That’s $100,000 in my operation alone,” he said.
Harvey Boyd, who farms grain and livestock near Lomond, Alta., doesn’t want the board dismantled but he does favor an open market.
“I’d sell to them as long as they were competitive,” he said.
Many farmers in southern Alberta keep cattle and grain and would refuse to sell cattle to a single agency the way they sell their wheat, Boyd said.
Beswick defended the board’s record and said it services small markets and sells loads of grain as small as 350 tonnes, as well as multi-million dollar contracts.
He reiterated the wheat board couldn’t survive in a dual market. It couldn’t maximize returns to farmers, couldn’t guarantee supplies and quality control would be impaired.
The dual domestic market for feed barley is an example of this, said Beswick.
People tend to deliver their best quality barley to domestic feeders for quick cash.
“The best of it is shipped to the feeders and we get the junk,” he said.
Beswick told the farmers he thinks the board should be a commercial organization rather than a political one. The agency has submitted changes to the federal government for the last three years, but has heard little
in reply.
One change the board has asked for is the ability to put cash bids on barley to avoid situations like this year when export orders for Japan were waiting to be filled and farmers wouldn’t deliver because the price was better at home.
