WINNIPEG – The man in charge of Europe’s arsenal in any future grain trade war came to the heart of Canada’s grain industry this week waving an olive branch.
During a series of meetings with farmers and grain industry groups, European Union agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler said the EU has no intention of getting involved in a subsidy war with the U.S. or anyone else.
“We have no interest whatsoever to start now a competition in subsidization of exports,” he said during a speech to some 110 grain industry officials in Winnipeg.
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He downplayed recent controversy over a shipment of subsidized EU barley to the U.S. and the subsequent use of Export Enhancement Program subsidies by the U.S.
“This case should be over now and we should look to the future,” he said, emphasizing instead the EU’s moves to replace price supports with direct income payments to farmers and to encourage farmers to take grain land out of production.
Concerns calmed
Fischler’s soothing words seemed to satisfy a number of farm leaders who had met with him earlier at a meeting organized by the
Canadian Wheat Board.
“I don’t think the EU is going to go out and try to hunt other markets down,” said Greg Rockafellow, president of the Western Barley Growers Association.
“Maybe this will turn out to have been a very short trade war,” said National Farmers Union representative Stewart Wells.
Board requests
During the meeting, farmers and CWB officials urged the EU to reduce support payments to farmers, which they said encourage overproduction, to take more grain land out of production and to eliminate or reduce export subsidies.
CWB commissioner Richard Klassen acknowledged that new EU programs are moving in the right direction, but not quickly enough.
“We just wish they were five years further advanced, because our farmers cannot wait,” he said, adding that grain growers can’t survive under the current price structure.
While the board doesn’t expect the meetings with Fischler will change the political landscape in Europe, it was important for him to hear directly from farmers how they are suffering as a result of EU subsidy programs, said Klassen.
And he added the board feels comfortable that neither the EU nor the U.S. is anxious to get into another trade war.
“They’ve been through one and it proved nothing, it just hurt farmers,” he said. “I think they’ve had the experience to realize that that’s rather a fruitless exercise.”
