MINOT, N.D. – When it comes to the question of whether the American border should be open to unrestricted imports of Canadian grain, northern North Dakota durum producer Bill Johnson is in no mood to compromise.
“They (Canadians) should compete in the world for markets and not come down here and take our markets,” he said one afternoon last week while delivering a semi-trailer of wheat to the Minot Farmers Union Elevator.
“Last year, there were times when you couldn’t get a place in the yard if you got here at 7:30 in the morning. It was filled with Canadian trucks. That’s not right.”
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His view was common among farmers delivering to the elevator.
They are in no mood to see the flow of Canadian grain pick up again after Sept. 11 when a one-year export cap is due to expire.
They believe Canadian grain is unfairly subsidized, takes space that they need and depresses their prices.
It is to farmers like these that state Senator Byron Dorgan speaks when he wages his campaign against the Canadian Wheat Board and Canadian grain policies.
Johnson, a soft-spoken 38 year old, farms 3,800 acres at Donnybrook, northwest of Minot.
He said the scenes in 1993 and 1994 at the three Minot elevators angered him.
“I don’t blame the Canadian farmer for wanting to get markets,” he said. “I blame the governments, theirs and mine, for the programs that allowed that to happen. I don’t want to see that happen again. Just because their government pays them to bring that wheat down and our governments let it in doesn’t make it right.”
Harold Wald, 62, of Norwich, west of town, echoed the resentment and offered a solution.
“We can’t have free trade if we don’t have the same systems,” he complained. “We have to have the same programs and the same money or it won’t work. As long as our countries operate on different rules, I don’t think that border should be open.”
Elevator operator Buzz Varty said in an interview it is simply a matter of buying the grain where the best deals can be had.
But he recognizes the powerful resentment area farmers have when they see the Canadian trucks.
“It just unleashed 10 years of frustration,” he said.
It doesn’t help that the railway which services the Minot elevator is owned by CP Rail and many farmers believe the railway diverts cars that they need into Canada.
Still, not all farmers denounced the Canadians.
Don Peterson, an old-timer who farms 1,000 acres near Minot, waved off a question about Canadian imports.
“It’s all politics,” he said as he walked away. “I’m just a farmer.”
