While farmer supporters of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly see its demise as a tragedy, Farmers of North America executive Bob Friesen said FNA sees it as an opportunity.
The former long-time president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture told a House of Commons committee studying Bill C-18 last week that a voluntary CWB can succeed and FNA can help.
The bill once approved will end the CWB wheat and barley sales monopoly Aug. 1, 2012.
“When Bill C-18 passes, we want to help be the architects of a system that’s going to help farmers with cost competitiveness and help farmers maximize their profits,” he told MPs.
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He said the CWB has a future if it wants one.
“I think one of the key components will be that there is a board that has a reason to want to make it successful. That will mean the board will want to make sure there’s a viable marketing agency for those farmers that want to use it and there may be lots of farmers,” said Friesen. “The debate is quite simple. We have a lot of farmers that want to continue to use a marketing agency, we have farmers that want to market on their own.”
He said FNA, created as a farmer-membership organization to bring cheaper generic crop input chemicals into the country, is expanding its scope and also can help a farmer marketing agency develop marketing skills, negotiate access to rail service, secure short-line railway cooperation with mainline railways and secure access to facilities.
It has created a task force to look at grain handling and marketing services the 10,000-member group could provide.
The goal is to create “a cross-walk between farmers and the marketplace much the way FNA in its past built a cross-walk between farmers and input suppliers.”
Friesen, chief executive officer of the Ottawa-based FNA Strategic Agriculture Institute, said one way the government could help would be to give farmers tax-free access to AgriInvest funds if they are using it for approved investments in the new system.
He said there is $450 million in AgriInvest Fund 2 on the Prairies that is subject to tax when removed. If that disincentive was removed and money removed from Fund 2, it would also make available $280 million in non-taxable Fund 1 money.
“What we’re suggesting is to create an incentive and to help farmers raise capital to make whatever investments they might want to make in a grain handling, transportation and marketing system,” said Friesen.
He said FNA has 10,000 farmer members.
Conservative MPs, accustomed to his defence of the CWB when president of the CFA, praised Friesen for his ideas and his pragmatic approach.
New Democrat MP Pat Martin, a fierce opponent of the legislation, said it was a logical approach since the legislation is going to be law.
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