Farmers must be given a prominent role in the upcoming review of the grain transportation system, say some farm leaders.
There were only four farmers among the 21 people invited to meet with federal ministers in Winnipeg July 25 to talk about grain transportation.
And that has left some farm leaders concerned about whether the review slated for this fall will take farmers’ views into account.
“We want better and more balanced representation of producer interests,” said Nettie Wiebe, president of the National Farmers Union.
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Sinclair Harrison, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, said farmers have more to lose than anyone if the system fails.
“When you look at it from the perspective of who has an investment at stake, certainly we need to be at the table and we need to be there in significant numbers,” he said.
Harrison, who attended the July 25 meeting, said farmers have about $70 billion invested in prairie agriculture, while grain companies and the railways each have an investment of around $4 to $5 billion.
Strong farmer representation is also crucial to the credibility of the review process, he said: “If we’re at the table, we’ll be less suspicious and less critical of the process that’s going on.”
Transport minister David Collenette has said he will be asking the industry for their views on how the review should be structured, who should conduct it and who should participate.
The farmers at the July 25 meeting were Harrison, Jim Robbins, the producer representative on the Car Allocation Policy Group, and Curtis Sims and Kevin Archibald, producer representatives on the senior executive officer committee. Sims and Archibald are proponents of a deregulated transportation system, while Robbins favors a continued role for the government and the Canadian Wheat Board.
Industry representatives
The rest of the group was made up of officials from grain companies, the railways, the Canadian Wheat Board, the Canadian Grain Commission and the federal government.
Robbins said since the July 25 meeting was aimed mainly at ensuring the system would be able to move all the grain needed in the next few months, it was appropriate to have a large number of industry officials on hand. But he said it’s crucial that the overall review be set up to give farmers lots of input.
“I think we have different fundamental economic interests than the grain companies and railroads,” he said. While shippers and carriers are happy to see grain move at a steady pace all year, farmers want to be able to ship large volumes in short periods to take advantage of peaks in price and demand.
The grain companies and railways tend to view transportation reform as a technical issue beyond the scope of farmers’ expertise, said Robbins, “but we’re the ones who pay the bills.”
Sims said the parties involved in moving grain should work out the logistics, based on market and commercial considerations.
“I don’t want to see this process become politicized,” he said. “I want results and getting the job done is the key from my perspective.”
While it’s a good idea to have farmers participate in the review process in order to be able to report back to producers, he said two or three would be enough: “You don’t need to have half the votes or half the people around the table.”
