Anyone who tries to hold up the Ontario wheat board as a model for a restructured Canadian Wheat Board doesn’t know what they’re talking about, says an Ontario wheat official.
“You absolutely cannot make any comparisons,” said Dana Omland, marketing manager for the Ontario Wheat Producers’ Marketing Board, who grew up on a farm near Saskatoon.
“The marketing environment is completely different out here.”
Proponents of an open market for the western Canadian wheat industry often point to the Ontario board as proof that a voluntary wheat board can operate successfully in an open market.
Read Also
Going beyond “Resistant” on crop seed labels
Variety resistance is getting more specific on crop disease pathogens, but that information must be conveyed in a way that actually helps producers make rotation decisions.
And they point to increased wheat acreage in Ontario as evidence that the open market system works better than the single desk, which was phased out over several years, beginning in 2000 and culminating in a completely open market in 2003.
Omland said they’re wrong on both counts.
Ontario farmers grow a different kind of wheat than western farmers, sell it to different markets and face a different handling and transportation situation.
“There are so many end users just a truck drive away from your farm here, including a huge domestic milling industry, readily accessible U.S. markets and port terminals on the Great Lakes.”
He said it would be like western farmers having the ability to deliver their wheat and barley by truck directly to Thunder Bay or Vancouver.
Not only is the marketing environment different, he added, but so is the product, volume produced and customer base.
As for acreage, Omland said that is a function of fall planting conditions and is unrelated to the marketing system.
“The acreage has nothing at all to do with a voluntary marketing system or prices,” said Omland.
