Farmers of North America says farmers’ investment over 75 years means it already belongs to them
Western Canadian farmers should be given the first opportunity to take over ownership of CWB when it is privatized, says a top official with Farmers of North America.
Bill Martin, vice-president of grain marketing with FNA, said western Canadian farmers have made significant investments in the wheat board and should have first crack at taking over the marketing agency when privatization occurs.
Ottawa has given CWB executives until 2016 to submit a plan to privatize the former wheat board.
That plan must be approved by Ottawa, and privatization must be completed by 2017.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
“We have had discussions with the federal government on that whole privatization process and we have had discussions with the CWB on that privatization process and we have made it clear that we believe farmers should have first crack at ownership before it gets sold to some multinational,” Martin said.
“The way we look at it, over the 75 year history of the Canadian Wheat Board, farmers have made a significant investment in that organization…. They (CWB) have one of the best grain marketing organizations in the world. They have very sophisticated market intelligence, very sophisticated weather intelligence and a very, very strong customer list. Farmers have paid for that. It belongs to them.”
FNA announced last month that it had reached a co-operative grain marketing deal with CWB that would allow it to act as a grain sourcing agent for the voluntary wheat board.
The deal puts FNA in a better position to promote farmer interests when privatization occurs.
“FNA doesn’t really take ownership positions,” Martin said.
“What FNA does is negotiate on behalf of our members and we do that on a wide range of products and services. Does the deal (with CWB) put us in a better position to take an ownership stake? No. But it does put us in a better position to make sure that we’re negotiating on behalf of farmers and to make sure that farmers have an opportunity to take an ownership position.”
Privatization of the CWB has been a recurring topic of discussion at CWB producer meetings that started in January and will continue for the next two weeks.
CWB officials have said that work aimed at privatizing the voluntary wheat board is underway, and a plan will likely be submitted to the federal government well before the August 2016 deadline.
CWB president Ian White said late last year that the board prefers a business model that would include farmers as a significant shareholder.
“Certainly we believe there’s a place for a farmer-owned or farmer-focused company in the Canadian prairie landscape once again, and we’ll be certainly looking (at) … how we might affect that and what sort of process we have to go through to get to that,” White said.
“We’ll be talking to farmers a lot about (this) when we come up with what that plan actually looks like, (but) our plan is not to have the CWB bought out by a grain company.… Our plan is to find ways of … having farmers as shareholders and maybe some other companies as shareholders as well, and looking for sources of capital.”
White said gaining access to capital will be critical to the company’s viability.
“We realize that we’re going to have to develop the business to be successful in the future and that probably means owning some level of storage and throughput capacity ourselves,” he said.
“To develop a grain company these days, it takes a lot of capital so we’ll be looking at how we access capital and what we’ve got to do to be successful going forward.”
Martin said FNA will do what it can to promote farmer interests during the privatization process.
“We want to make sure that when the board of directors of the CWB and officials from the federal government are making their privatization plans, that they are constantly reminded that … farmers (have) already paid for this.”
