These days, Brigitte Leitgeb finds talking about the Canadian Wheat Board a little like talking about religion or politics at the dinner table.
And after federal agriculture minister Ralph Goodale’s announcement last week, she thinks the conversation is only going to get worse.
“Either you’re for the board or against, and there’s no rational discourse on the subject anymore,” said Leitgeb, who farms near St. Francois Xavier, Man.
“And that really worries me a lot, because if you can’t talk to anybody about it, then I don’t think we should be surprised to see more farmers go to jail, or on the other side, more farmers wishing that their fellow farmers go to jail.”
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Leitgeb took part in grain marketing hearings last spring and told the panel why she wants to see a dual market for wheat and barley.
But now, she said she feels almost embarrassed the agricultural community has become so divided over the matter.
Leitgeb said she thinks Goodale should have shown more leadership in determining what the wheat board should buy and sell.
Instead, she said the minister has thrown the most contentious issue back at farmers. Other changes announced last week, such as spot price options, make the board more like a business without removing its monopoly.
“It seems like they’re getting away from what producers support them the most for, which was pooling,” Leitgeb observed.
Curtis Sims, a member of Canadian Farmers for Justice, said Goodale’s changes will make the wheat board more flexible – just what it needs to compete in a dual market.
Sims was most disappointed with the “all or nothing” plebiscite question on barley marketing. He said it’s a political move to scare farmers into voting to keep barley under the board.
A completely open market for barley is “something that even those of us who are real ardent dual marketers have never proposed.”
Jim Pallister, another group member, said he thinks court cases in Alberta will do a lot more to further the debate than a plebiscite.
Pallister, who farms at Portage la Prairie, Man., said Farmers for Justice believes monopolies are illegal and unjust, and even if farmers vote to keep barley under the wheat board, it would be “the tyranny of the majority.”
Art Mainil, a Benson, Sask. member of Farmers for Justice, said he thinks all farmers would gain from a dual market because competition would lead to more grain sales.
In Alberta, there’ll be more border runs and more farmers pulling themselves out of the board system, said Farmers For Justice member Richard Nordstrom.
Rather than soothing farmers who have been calling for change, Goodale’s wheat board plans will just infuriate farmers who will see them as no real change and just a delaying tactic, he said.
“That silent little majority is going to vote with their trucks. Maybe you gotta really explode” to get taken seriously, he said.
As well, he said Alberta farmers will likely find quieter ways to show their displeasure. He said he has farmed without a CWB permit for two years and refuses to sell his wheat and barley through the federal institution. Instead he sells both his wheat and his barley to the local feed industry. He expects others will follow his example.
