SASKATOON – Organic farmers are divided on the Western Grain Marketing Panel’s recommendation to remove organic wheat from the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly.
But many believe if the recommendation is adopted, standards will have to be strictly maintained to protect the industry from those who pass off conventional grain as organic to get around what remains of the board’s monopoly.
The panel recommended July 9 that organic wheat be exempted from the wheat board’s jurisdiction and marketed through an identity-preserved system supervised by the Canadian Grain Commission.
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Producers could still use the board if they chose. The panel also said Ottawa needs to complete efforts to create a recognized, national certification program for organic grain.
Dexter Schmidt, a Peace River, Alta. farmer, said he was pleased with the recommendation.
“The CWB doesn’t do anything for us. They don’t find our markets for us and we shouldn’t have to pay for infrastructure we don’t use,” he said.
John Husband, an organic producer from Wawota, Sask., also likes the idea. He said the current system, where organic producers find a buyer and use the CWB’s buy-back process, masks market signals.
“On numerous occasions I have an opportunity to sell into the United States and I find out that the buy-back price is too high and I can’t pursue it.”
Some organic growers avoid wheat and barley because they don’t want to deal with the board, he said.
Ian Cushon, an Oxbow, Sask., farmer, had hoped to keep organic wheat and barley under the CWB.
“Because the industry is small, price discovery is hard and prices are all over the map,” he said.
The buy-back price shows what the board is getting for conventional wheat in a market and the organic premium could be added to that, he said.
“We’ve had cases where growers or marketers made sales at conventional prices or even less. That’s ridiculous.”
Neil Strayer, a Drinkwater, Sask. organic farmer, said he can survive with or without the board.
But he has a good relationship with it that has helped his business grow faster, he said.
Strayer sees the buy-back not as a problem, but as a hedge that protects his sales. Without it, he’d have to use U.S. commodity markets to hedge and that would cost a lot of money.
“And unlike any other grain company in the world, they give me insights to what is going on in the market, access to wheat board intelligence … all they ask is a baseline price so we don’t go out and compete against them.
“I think it is unfortunate more organic farmers haven’t used the wheat board as a marketing tool.”
Strayer and others agreed organic premiums might fall if unscrupulous producers use their industry as a loophole to get around the board.
Human nature
“You are going to see people trying to get wheat, durum and barley out of the country under the organic system somehow. It’s human nature,” said Gene Davis, of North Portal, Sask.
“It would reduce our premiums if you have a volume of questionable grain into our system.”
After years of work, the industry is close to agreeing on national standards, but Davis would prefer that existing grower group protocols be accepted.
These protocols set out how many years a field must go without synthetic inputs before being designated organic. They also require an audit trail to allow an organic food to be traced back to the field where it was grown.
Strayer also sees problems developing, but believes a national organic standard is the only way to deal with them.
“Very quickly, we’d be reduced to the lowest common denominator and the industry’s credibility would be seriously jeopardized.”
