SASKATOON — A survey showing only 29 percent of prairie farmers want the Canadian Wheat Board to be the sole seller of barley to the U.S. doesn’t faze Art Macklin.
The president of the National Farmers Union says that low level of support simply reflects how successful opponents of the wheat board have been at spreading misinformation about barley marketing issues.
“I am quite confident that if Canadian farmers are given accurate information they would prefer to have a strong CWB with single-desk selling and price pooling,” he said.
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The survey by United Grain Growers asked 600 farmers to indicate which method of selling barley to the U.S. they prefered. The result was: Solely by the wheat board 29 percent; solely by farmers and grain companies 12 percent; by a combination of the board, farmers and grain companies, 52 percent.
(Given the sample size, the survey is considered to be accurate to within four percentage points times 19 times of out 20. In other words, support for the ‘wheat board only’ option among all farmers likely falls between 25 and 33 percent.)
The survey pegged support for the continental market at 55 percent in Alberta and 50 percent in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Somewhat surprisingly, it also indicated that among farmers who deliver mainly to the prairie wheat pools, 51 percent favor the continental market and 32 percent the board.
UGG officials and other proponents of removing the board’s monopoly and setting up a continental barley market are using the survey as more ammunition to get a plebiscite on barley marketing.
You can’t have both
But Macklin, a strong supporter of the wheat board system, said farmers are being misled by UGG and others into thinking that they can have both a continental barley market and a strong wheat board.
“You can’t,” he said. “If a question is going to be asked it had better be ‘do you want barley under the board or off the board, do you want single-desk selling or the open market’, because you can’t have both.”
Proponents of the continental market say high volumes of sales to the U.S. support their contention that farmers would be better off with more merchants selling their barley across the border. But Macklin said during that same period, the price of malting barley dropped by $40 to $50 a tonne because the board lost its monopoly marketing power.
Meanwhile a wheat board official said continental market supporters are wrong when they say that farmers in other parts of the country are free to sell their barley to the U.S. whenever and however they choose.
At a press conference in Calgary last month, Tim Harvie of the Alberta Barley Commission, said: “Barley growers in Eastern Canada have unrestricted access to the U.S. and Mexican markets. We believe farmers in Western Canada should also be entitled to the same opportunities.”
That is simply not true, said wheat board lawyer Margaret Redmond: “They are absolutely incorrect in those statements.”
Sections 45 and 46 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act state that no one can export barley (or wheat) without an export licence from the wheat board.
“The act applies country-wide,” said Redmond. “The export controls apply across Canada.”
