Ontario Wheat Board delegates have voted to experiment with an end to its wheat export monopoly.
In a scheme similar to the Reform party proposal to allow farmers to opt out of the Canadian Wheat Board for a set time period, delegates to the Ontario board annual meeting last week voted to give farmers the option.
If approved by the board of directors in early April, Ontario wheat producers will be able to decide before the beginning of the crop year whether they want to be part of the pool.
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If they choose to opt out for one year, they would be able to sell into the export market on their own. They would not have access to the Ontario domestic market, which takes most of the annual crop of soft white wheat.
The next year, they would have another chance to decide.
“It would be all or nothing,” Ken Nixon, first vice-chair of the board and likely 1998 chair, said in a March 9 interview. “You are either in or out. It does not allow you to cherry pick if you declare one way and then want to go the other if prices strengthen.”
He said the decision to allow a dual export market was supported by 90 out of 100 delegates in hopes it will end the debate over the future of the monopoly.
“The broader debate has monopolized our time,” said Nixon. “It is hard to say if this will end it completely or not. We hope it does. It has really reduced the time we have to spend on long-term, important things like research, market development and customer service. It has been a tough go.”
Nixon said the dual export market is an “experiment” designed to see how an erosion of the monopoly works.
Delegates rejected proposals for a more radical move, including a domestic dual market, “until they see if this works or not.”
