Farmers are clearly divided over what kind of grain marketing system they want, but they’re strongly united on one thing: they want to be the ones to decide whether the Canadian Wheat Board should be the single desk marketer of their wheat and barley.
According to the CWB’s annual producer survey, 75 percent of prairie farmers want the future of the marketing agency to be determined through a vote by farmers.
Another 13 percent said it should be decided through the biennial election of CWB directors, while eight percent said it should be determined by the federal government.
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The survey of 1,303 permit book holders, conducted by Innovative Research Group, is accurate to within 2.7 percentage points, 19 times out 20.
Board chair Ken Ritter said the survey results buttress the board’s position that the contentious issue of single desk marketing should be left up to farmers.
“Clearly farmers want to decide and it would be a wise decision on the part of everyone to have farmers make that decision,” he said.
Farmers pay for the CWB, they use its programs and services and they elect farmers who run it, he said, so they should have the right to determine its future.
Based on other numbers contained in the survey, a vote on the board’s future could be a close affair, depending on how the question is put to farmers.
If farmers are given a three-way choice, 45 percent favour single desk wheat marketing, 47 percent favour dual marketing in which farmers could choose between the CWB and the open market and seven percent opt for a fully open market.
However, if the choice is simply between the single desk and the open market, which the board says is the real choice, then 63 percent want the single desk and 30 percent want an open market.
Greg Lyle, managing director of Innovative Research Group, said perhaps the most important factor affecting farmers’ views on the marketing issue is whether they think the CWB can survive in a dual market.
Those who think it can – 59 percent of farmers, according to the survey – support the dual market.
Those who don’t want to retain the single desk.
Lyle said after analyzing all the questions, it seems that about 25 percent of farmers are firmly opposed to the board, about 40 percent are pro-board no matter what and about 35 percent are up for grabs.
“That last group sort of likes the board but they want to keep pressure on it to get better results,” he said.
He added the single desk side would probably receive more support in a vote than in a survey because its supporters would be more motivated to participate.
Some questions presented apparently contradictory results.
For example, while only eight percent said the board’s fate should be determined by government, in answer to another question 50 percent said the government should go ahead and fulfill its campaign pledge to implement a dual market.
Similarly, while 59 percent said a dual market would not necessarily mean the end of the wheat board, in answer to another question 48 percent said a dual market would be “unworkable.”
Board chair Ken Ritter said the main message to the board is that it has to do a better job explaining to farmers why a dual market would doom the board.
Ritter said dual market supporters want to have their cake and eat it too – the financial benefits of a monopoly seller and the freedom to market outside the single desk – and haven’t thought through the realities of a dual market, in which the wheat board, with no physical assets and no ability to fetch premiums in world markets, would have to compete with giant multinationals and move grain through its competitors’ elevators.
“The CWB’s future existence would be very tenuous and it would provide no more benefit to farmers than any grain company would,” he said. “It’s our job to make sure farmers are aware of the facts.”
Here are other results from the survey:
- Seventy-six percent said that “all things considered,” they support the wheat board, up from 73 percent from the previous year. Broken down by province, support for the board was highest in Manitoba at 81 percent, followed by Saskatchewan at 78 percent and Alberta at 69 percent.
- Twenty-two percent said they had a more favourable impression of the board in 2006 than they did two years ago.
- Fifty-nine percent said the CWB would provide better service if it faced competition and 54 percent believe such competition would bring them better grain prices.
- Eighty-two percent said the CWB would do more to protect their interests than a U.S. grain company and 62 percent think they receive better grain prices thanks to the wheat board.
- Seventy-one percent said the board reflects their own views on important farming issues, which put the board well ahead of farm groups such as the Canadian Federation of Agriculture at 53 percent, the National Farmers Union at 48 percent and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association at 42 percent.
- Twenty-four percent want the wheat board dismantled and wheat marketing turned over to private companies.
