The Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association ensured that the Canadian Wheat Board issue surfaced at a March 31 meeting of the House of Commons agriculture committee.
“The captivity of western Canadian farmers to the CWB monopoly means we have no escape valve, “association chair Mike Bast told MPs.
“The committee is examining what measures are restricting competition in Canadian agriculture in limiting our competitiveness. The most obvious and harmful barrier to the competition is the imposition of the CWB monopoly by the Parliament of Canada on western Canadian farmers.”
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Opposition CWB supporters challenged the argument.
New Democrat Alex Atamanenko said the wheat board has reported record returns to farmers last year of more than $7 billion. Canadian farmers earned more than American farmers, so what is there to complain about?
Bast replied that the CWB numbers do not tell the full story. It was a record year by board standards but not by market standards.
He said in January 2008, he had 20,000 bushels of durum wheat that the board priced at $12 per bushel. The open market offered $21.80.
“So taking roughly $10 loss to my farm per bushel, that’s $200,000 and I’m considered a small farmer,” he told MPs.
“So that’s a huge hit for me because I was compelled to go through the monopoly system.”
Atamanenko persisted.
Farmers elect most of CWB board members and consistently send mainly single desk supporters to Winnipeg, he said.
But Bast had a ready answer. He said the CWB voting rules are biased toward producers with a few acres and no interest in doing their own marketing. In elections, they receive an equal vote with a 5,000 acre producer trying to make a living from grain production.
“So even though we are electing 10 directors, the process to get those 10 directors is heavily skewed.”
Liberal Wayne Easter objected to the WCWGA argument that the wheat board monopoly is imposed by Parliament. Liberal amendments in 1998 put farmers in charge, he said.
Bast countered that genuine producers trying to make a living from the wheat market are outnumbered by the minor players with a few acres and a permit book. Even if the majority of directors supported an end to the monopoly, it would still be Parliament’s decision on whether to do it or not.
The association also argued that because of the CWB, there is less value-added processing in wheat than in other crops.
Less than five percent of prairie-grown wheat is processed on the Prairies, Bast argued, while it is close to 50 percent for canola and higher for other crops.
