For two hours June 7, two sets of organic growers and marketers argued in front of MPs about whether the Canadian Wheat Board helps or hurts the industry.
In the middle sat Canadian Wheat Board chair Ken Ritter insisting the board is a good deal for organic growers, despite the complaints of some.
On the outside looking in sat MPs who sometimes wondered where the truth lay.
“It’s totally confusing to someone not in the industry,” said southwestern Ontario Liberal Rose-Marie Ur. “We can’t get our act together. Until we do that, the government will always be wrong.”
Read Also
Alberta crop diversification centres receive funding
$5.2 million of provincial funding pumped into crop diversity research centres
Canadian Alliance critic Howard Hilstrom from Manitoba, a persistent critic of the CWB monopoly and an instigator of the House of Commons agriculture committee hearing, had no problems knowing where truth lay.
He said organic growers should be allowed to find their own markets and sell outside the board, without the need to go through the buy-back system.
Later, he appeared at a news conference with John Husband of the Organic Special Products Group, Eric Leicht of the Marysburg Organic Producers Inc. and Arnold Schmidt of Schmidt Flour Inc. to demand a change in the wheat board act to exempt organic grains from CWB control.
He continues to raise the issue in the Commons, constantly running into wheat board minister Ralph Goodale’s argument that the farmer-elected board should make the decision.
During the committee meeting, Hilstrom aggressively accused Ritter and the board of deception and arrogance.
“The idea that only a monopoly works doesn’t make sense to me,” said the MP. “It is coming across very clearly that the board is approaching total arrogance.”
Ritter, supported by Allan Graff from Vulcan, Alta., president of the Canadian Organic Advisory Board and Neil Strayer of Growers International Organic Sales Inc. of Belle Plaine, Sask., argued that the board’s buy-back system is being misunderstood or misrepresented.
Organic growers can find their own markets and sell to them. However, under the pooling system, they must first sell the grain to the wheat board at the going initial price and then buy it back at what the CWB is charging that day for ordinary wheat.
“Any organic premium they receive for that grain is kept by the producer,” Ritter said.
Graff and Strayer, both of whom market organic grain for themselves and others and do the CWB paperwork as part of their business fee, argued the board helps organic growers by increasing the value of basic grain, which then becomes a basis for pricing organic product.
Hilstrom said they both had a bias in favor of the board because they benefit financially from doing the buy-back paperwork.
Leicht presented figures to indicate that on his Spalding, Sask., farm, he regularly loses 90 cents or more per bushel in the buy-back. He said that often is more than the organic market premium.
He said the wheat board is hurting development of Canada’s organic sector and stifling value-added enterprise such as milling.
The session ended with the two sides still disagreeing.
But Ur, who has used marketing boards to sell her Ontario crops, seemed to end up siding with those who suggest that farmers who argue to be outside the wheat board may not understand how difficult marketing is.
“You can’t be a master farmer and a master marketer at the same time,” she said.
