The federal government must come up with more financial help for grain farmers to ensure a crop is planted next spring, says the chair of the Canadian Wheat Board.
Ken Ritter said the grain marketing agency fears that cash-strapped producers will seed fewer acres, resulting in fewer export sales and a further reduction in farm income.
“I think it’s important that the government see that farmers are going to have a real difficult time seeding next year’s crop,” he said in an interview after speaking to the annual convention of the National Farmers Union held in Saskatoon Nov. 25-27.
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The board was not involved in last month’s trip to Ottawa by politicians and farm groups, during which they unsuccessfully lobbied the federal government for $1.3 billion in direct aid to grain and oilseed producers.
Ritter wouldn’t endorse a particular amount or method of payment and declined to criticize the much-maligned Agricultural Income Disaster Assistance program.
However, he said it shouldn’t be hard to figure out how much help is needed.
“I think it’s reasonable to assume you can analyze what it costs to put in a crop and whether regions of the Prairies have the capacity to do that,” he said.
Fellow wheat board director Art Macklin, who represents northern Alberta and the Peace district, said the agency has a duty as a farmer-controlled organization to make sure Ottawa understands the gravity of the situation.
“The federal government is going to have to step in and make sure that if they want an export grain industry in Western Canada, they’re going to have to make sure it’s viable.”
Macklin added no organization is in a better position than the CWB to analyze and explain the unfair situation facing grain farmers, given its expertise and experience in world grain markets.
The ongoing discussion about low grain prices was brought home to many NFU delegates by a document distributed at the convention.
Union member Morris Prescesky, a farmer from Mayfair, Sask., found a grain ticket dating from 1948 that showed the elevator price of a bushel of feed oats was 84 cents. That’s only one cent less than the 85 cent price offered last week at an elevator in Unity, Sask.
He said that selling 1,000 bushels of oats for 84 cents in 1948 would produce revenue of $840 – nearly a year’s salary.
But the $850 generated by selling those oats today would represent only about one week’s salary.
