It’s time U.S. farmers found out how the Canadian Wheat Board operates, says Jim Ness.
So the Alberta farmer and some of his colleagues in Canadian Farmers For Justice are holding a meeting in Minot, North Dakota, this week to start the education process.
While they’re at it, they hope to gain some allies in their ongoing fight to end the CWB’s monopoly on wheat and barley exports and create a completely open border for grain trade.
Create unity
“It’s an information meeting and I believe arising out of it you’ll have some joint Canada/U.S. committees struck that will go into it further,” Ness said in an interview from his farm at New Brigden, Alta.
Read Also
Agri-business and farms front and centre for Alberta’s Open Farm Days
Open Farm Days continues to enjoy success in its 14th year running, as Alberta farms and agri-businesses were showcased to increase awareness on how food gets to the dinner plate.
He admitted the attempt to enlist support from U.S. farmers is “kind of a shot in the dark” but said there are reasons to believe many of them will be more than ready to lend a hand to Farmers For Justice in its campaign to break the CWB’s monopoly.
“We know American farmers are very frustrated with a state enterprise dumping wheat down there and affecting their grain prices,” said Ness.
CFFJ member Art Mainil, of Benson, Sask., said they’ll be telling their American counterparts everybody would be better off in a continental grain market.
“The 49th parallel should not be there,” he said in an interview from his farm at Benson, about 60 km north of the border.
However, one U.S. farm leader said that while many farmers don’t like Canadian grain coming into their country, it doesn’t mean they’ll support calls for a completely open border.
Only benefit Canada
Richard Haugeberg, president of the U.S. Durum Growers Association, said he fears an open border might become a one-way street heading south.
“With our domestic industry so much larger than in Canada, the northern plains wheat farmer in the U.S. would have very little to gain from an open border.”
Haugeberg said he understands the desire of some Canadian farmers to sell directly to U.S. buyers when prices are higher south of the border, but doesn’t really like the idea of Canadian wheat displacing U.S. wheat in the American domestic market.
“I’m kind of reluctant to say ‘yeah, bring it all down here’,” he said, adding the U.S. highway system and grain handling infrastructure wasn’t designed to handle large volumes of grain coming from Canada.
Farmers For Justice members say they hope to capitalize on the strong resentment against Canadian grain imports shown by some 300 U.S. farmers at an April 2 public meeting in Minot, attended by U.S. trade representative Charlene Barshefsky.
The April 16 meeting is being held in the same hotel room and is being advertised in local newspapers and on radio.
Ness was cautious about what to expect at the meeting, saying attendance could be anywhere from two dozen to several hundred. But Mainil said he doesn’t think the hall will be big enough to handle the crowd.
“These guys are worked up,” he said. “We’re going to have a big time flow of Canadians going down there and the Americans will be there too.”
Farmers angry
Mainil and others say U.S. farmers are angry, and so are CFFJ supporters, because the board routinely dumps Canadian wheat into the U.S. at below market prices in order to gain market share. Mainil said he has sold durum for $9 a bushel in the U.S. that would have fetched him around $5.30 in Canada.
Board spokesperson Rhea Yates said the board does not dump grain into the U.S., and she said farmers must be careful not to make their marketing decisions based on initial payments or even the pool return outlook.
An analysis by the board shows that in 1995-96 , the CWB’s final price on No. 1 CW amber durum (13 percent protein) was $8.01 a bushel, compared with a U.S. weighted average price at Stanley, N.D. of $7.82.
The elevator spot price at Stanley was higher than $8.01 for a couple of weeks in the fall of 1995 and again for a couple of weeks in the spring of 1996.
