opinion
The year is 1999, somewhere in southern Saskatchewan. For at least one farmer near the U.S. border, life is sweet. With the 1997 dismantling of the hated bureaucracy and regulations of the former wheat board, he has been free to sell his grain wherever and whenever he wishes.
Although he knows it’s not usually advisable to let competitors learn information about his marketing successes, he can’t help indicating to other farmers on coffee row that he just placed a large shipment south of the border at premium prices.
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George looks a little glum, but that’s understandable. George has a brother farming in the Peace country who is too far away to grab such U.S. opportunities. He has no choice but to take the local elevator’s offering price, which is at rock-bottom levels due to another export-subsidy war.
Bert also seems pretty quiet, probably embarrassed because he wasn’t lucky enough to pick the right moment to sell. He had some financial pressures (a diplomatic way of referring to an abusive bank manager) and he jumped at the first offer for his grain.
Everyone knows Bert’s family have been questioning his judgment, accusing him of wrecking their finances because he couldn’t even get an average price for the marketing year. Bert, the wimp, just whines that he produced a good crop and it would have kept them afloat if only the wheat board had still been in existence to provide its traditional price pooling.
Although the successful farmer sneers at Bert (after all, life is survival of the fittest), he does have a twinge of regret. When Bert packs it in and sells out to MegaFarm Inc., that will mean the successful farmer’s children will have an extra 10 miles to go to find another farm family to play with. That will mean more chauffeur service, but one of the hired hands can probably be pressured into providing that.
Despite such irritations, life is still good for this southern Saskatchewan farmer. One cloud on the horizon consists of ominous market reports about how U.S. politicians are finally realizing it’s time to end their wasteful domestic and export subsidies. When that becomes translated into legislation, some say, the premium prices will evaporate.
As the successful farmer browses through his computerized market information services, he suddenly pauses, looking thoughtfully at a news update on freight-rate changes. It seems the rates for farmers in the middle of the Prairies, farthest from seaports, are going up dramatically.
“That’s not right,” he exclaims. “Why should some farmers pay so much less just because they’re lucky enough to be closer to salt water? Aren’t we all in this together?”
