A group representing agribusinesses and some prairie producers has re-released an 11-month-old survey in which members call for sweeping changes to the Canadian Wheat Board.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business survey was conducted in April 2010, and part of it was made public in October 2010 during the CWB directors election campaign.
Now the full survey has been released.
The first part of the survey released in October focused on producer complaints about customer service and dissatisfaction with CWB performance and programs.
“The new board has a lot of work ahead to address customer service issues and ensure it is meeting producers’ evolving needs,” said Virginia Labbie, the federation’s senior policy analyst for agribusiness.
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“It is clear the CWB cannot keep operating at status quo.”
She said the survey results will be passed on to federal agriculture and CWB minister Gerry Ritz to make sure he’s aware of farmers’ desire for change. But the bottom line message is to the board itself.
“This is really a call for action to the CWB board of directors,” said Labbie.
Wheat board spokesperson Maureen Fitzhenry said the survey results may be a fair reflection of the views of CFIB members, but they don’t reflect the views of farmers in general.
“Their agribusiness members on the Prairies represent fewer than four percent of CWB permit book holders,” she said. “It’s not a meaningful measure of prairie farmers’ views.”
The CFIB represents 107,000 small-and medium-sized businesses in Canada, of which 7,200 are agribusinesses, including 1,900 on the Prairies. A majority of those 1,900 are primary producers.
Fitzhenry said the CFIB holds a particular ideological viewpoint in favour of the open market, and the survey questions and results lack credibility.
“This is designed to produce a particular result and support the ideological perspective of this group.”
The board conducts its own customer satisfaction and producer surveys, and the results, published on a regular basis, are generally positive, she added.
Results from the CFIB survey of members
• Should producers have the option to market wheat and barley outside of the CWB?
83 percent: yes 13 percent: no
• If so, how would your agribusiness benefit?
63 percent: better market signals
41 percent: opportunity to niche market
30 percent: greater control of profitability
• What would be the harmful effects if you had the option to sell to the open market?
48 percent: none
32 percent: vulnerable to multinational grain companies
23 percent: lose ability to pool risk
22 percent: lose ability to pool risk and prices
• How important is it to retain the CWB as a marketing option in an open market?
26 percent: very important
33 percent: somewhat important
33 percent: not important
The email/mail-out survey drew responses from 411 CFIB producer members. Respondants gave more than one answer to the questions so results may not equal 100 percent. Results are considered statistically accurate to within plus or minus 4.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
