Federal agriculture minister Chuck Strahl says a private member’s bill that would allow farmers to bypass the Canadian Wheat Board when selling to producer-owned, value-added plants is a sensible “small step” toward dismantling the board marketing monopoly.
He told a May 18 news conference that although it is not a government bill, he supports the principle of the legislation and it is in line with an election campaign promise to change the board and to support producer involvement in value-added enterprises.
Strahl also predicted that the bill would have parliamentary support.
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“It’s part of our belief that it’s certainly a small step on the way to dual marketing for the wheat board and it would be hard to believe that we would (not) encourage that sort of thing,” he said.
“We have to make it as easy as possible for farmers to not only ship but to participate in value-added opportunities like biofuels, pasta plants, nutraceuticals, bioplastics, you name it.”
Saskatchewan Conservative MP and House of Commons agriculture committee chair Gerry Ritz introduced Bill C-300 May 17 that would amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act if approved by Parliament after two separate hours of debate.
The bill could come up for a vote as early as next winter.
Despite Strahl’s claim that it would be difficult to imagine opposition, wheat board defenders will see it as an attack on the monopoly.
When he introduced his legislation, Ritz said he was representing “all the farmers of Western Canada” who grow board grains when he proposed “to do away with that arcane and punitive buyback provision in the Canadian Wheat Board Act.”
The buyback requirement is blamed by CWB critics for killing plans to build a pasta plant on the Prairies and for discouraging farmer investments in grain processing plants since the buyback eats into whatever profit they might make.
If farmers want to sell their grain directly, they must first, on paper, deliver it to the wheat board at the initial price and then buy it back at a higher market price with the difference added to the revenue sharing pool.
Ritz said that regulation should not apply to grain sold to a value-adding plant that is majority owned by producers.
