HYDE PARK, Ont. – As an Ontario feed grain buyer, Ian Carter seems to appreciate the Ontario Wheat Producers’ Marketing Board more than some farmers who must market through the board.
“Historically, I think the board has done a good job of managing the market,” Carter said in the office of London Agricultural Commodities Inc. in this city suburb. “There are pros and cons to having a board with single desk powers but on balance, I think it has worked well.”
As chair of the Ontario Grain and Feed Association wheat committee, Carter meets regularly with the Ontario wheat board to make sure his members have grain when they need it.
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“I know there are complaints but I still think there is good underlying support for the Ontario board in the countryside.”
Ken Nixon does not deny that assertion.
The 30 year old who farms near Ilderton, a half-hour north of Carter’s office, merely wishes Ontario’s 16,000 wheat farmers had more marketing choices.
As first vice-president of the farmer-controlled board, Nixon is in a position to do something about it.
He is part of a growing group of mainly young, mainly large producers who farm within an hour or two of the American border and who are using positions within the board’s democratic structure to lobby against the 23-year-old single-desk monopoly.
At issue are legislative rules that give the Ontario board exclusive power to handle Ontario’s million-tonne plus wheat crop every year, including sales to overseas buyers, American and Ontario mills and much of the residual feed wheat.
During the prairie debate over the future of the Canadian Wheat Board, proponents of change have often looked enviously east, noting the Ontario board is run by a farmer-elected board of directors.
In some cases, they have assumed this farmer control has meant the board is voluntary and that wheat farmers have more marketing options in Ontario than in the West.
“I’ve had MPs and producers and news media call up to say that farmers here can market as they want,” said Ontario board general manager William McClounie. “I have to say ‘nope, they can’t.’ In many ways, Ontario board controls are stricter than the (Canadian) wheat board’s.”
For Ken Nixon and his reformist allies, that is the point.
“I wish we had more options, but the pressure has made the board somewhat more open,” he said. “If you look back on the changes in the past five years, I would say in the next five years greater change is entirely possible. I’m not sure if it would be a dual market in some way or just an open market. We’ll see.”
