The Alberta government is so pleased with the direction of the recently released report on western grain marketing that it may drop legal challenges it had been considering against the Canadian Wheat Board, said the provincial minister of agriculture.
“Overall it’s very positive,” said Walter Paszkowski. “There’s been a lot of progress made.”
Alberta farmers were some of the most vocal opponents of the wheat board. In a plebiscite last year about two-thirds of the farmers who voted wanted the option of selling their wheat and barley to the wheat board or on their own.
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Because the wheat board is under federal control, the province looked at legal action as a way to force the federal government to make changes to the wheat board.
Meanwhile, Manitoba’s agriculture minister Harry Enns said federal agriculture minister Ralph Goodale told him Ottawa would likely accept most of the suggestions.
He said Goodale called him the day before the report was released to discuss the main points.
The fruits of flexibility
If the report’s recommendations are implemented, Enns said Manitoba livestock farmers will benefit from more flexibility in the feed barley market.
Manitoba barley growers will benefit from being able to sell barley in the U.S. because freight costs to the east and west coasts are prohibitively high, he added.
Enns also said the recent change to an open market system for hogs in Manitoba, which began July 1, shows the sky doesn’t fall when a board loses its monopoly.
“When I introduced some flexibility into our hog marketing situation, many people accused me of killing the hog board,” Enns said.
“This is a changing world and those kind of fixed monopolies are not necessarily the ones that will do the best job for us today.”
The Western Grain Marketing Panel held hearings across the Prairies last winter to gather opinions on what type of grain marketing system western Canadians want. It released its findings July 9.
Saskatchewan transportation minister Andy Renaud, speaking for absent agriculture minister Eric Upshall, said the provincial government supports wheat board principles and its monopoly status.
“So we need time to ask questions to determine whether the recommendations of this report will in any way affect those principles.”
On the proposal to move feed barley out of the wheat board’s monopoly he said: “How do you tell which is malt and which is feed when it is going over the U.S. border? They haven’t given us a clue as to how they are going to do that.”
Back in Alberta, Paszkowski said Goodale should use an Order in Council to implement the recommendations quickly rather than going back to farmers for one final opinion, as Goodale has suggested.
“I’m not sure what he’s seeking. On more than one occasion he said he was waiting for the recommendations of the producer panel and now he’s suggesting a further consultation process. I find that rather strange.”
While Paszkowski favors many of the recommendations, he is not sure how the board will continue to control malting barley and not export feed barley, how a mix of spot pricing and pooling prices will work or why wheat is still under the board.
“I don’t know why they stand in the way of wheat and wheat alone.”
The decision to restructure the board to include elected and appointed board of directors is a positive step, Paszkowski said.
