For decades the Canadian Wheat Board system has determined to a large degree how the western Canadian grain trade operates. But as the CWB sales monopoly appears to be ending, farm groups, grain companies and regulators are installing a new set of gears for a changed marketing machine. In this series, Ed White looks at changes happening throughout Winnipeg’s grain trade, which has long served as the main base of operations for the industry.
The Canadian Wheat Board lost its monopoly and dropped GrainWorld, but another marketing firm has picked up the ball and is carrying it forward.
Read Also
Message to provincial agriculture ministers: focus on international trade
International trade stakeholders said securing markets in the face of increasing protectionism should be the key priority for Canada’s agriculture ministers.
Wild Oats, the Winnipeg-based marketing newsletter and advisory service, will be running the conference at the same time and place.
“It’s been one of those good things that has been going on a long time, and I want to carry it on,” said Wild Oats publisher John Duvenaud, who is organizing the conference.
“The wheat board did it for a long time and did a good job. But things change.”
The conference, which has been Canada’s most significant agricultural markets outlook conference, is scheduled for Feb. 26-28 at the Fairmont Hotel in Winnipeg.
More information is available at www.canadagrain.com/grainworld2012.
GrainWorld has been drawing hundreds of farmers and representatives of grain companies, marketing firms, railways, banks and commodity organizations for decades since the wheat board took over the conference in the late 1980s and moved it to Winnipeg.
Before that, it was an Agriculture Canada event that was held in Ottawa under a different name and timed to follow the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s outlook conference.
GrainWorld is usually a day and a half of market outlook sessions on all major prairie agricultural classes, including livestock.
Also included are sessions on overall world economic outlooks, the ocean freight market and U.S. and European government agricultural policies.
Organizing a big conference is a challenge for a small firm like Wild Oats, but Duvenaud betrayed no anxiety when asked if he was excited or fearful about hosting it.
“It’s going to be great, a lot of fun,” he said.
The ferment caused by the ending of wheat board’s monopoly might draw additional interest to the conference this year, so Duvenaud doesn’t know how many people to expect.
