PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Man. – Farmers won’t get an official investigation into input price fixing allegations, the federal Competition Bureau has decided.
But Manitoba farmers aren’t going to shut up about the issue.
“We need to find out why those prices are as high as they are,” said Robert McLean, vice-president of Keystone Agricultural Producers, in an interview during KAP’s general council meeting.
“We’re going to make the public aware of what’s going on. Hopefully that will be enough pressure that we can get some answers to get some fertilizer parity with the United States.”
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The Competition Bureau turned down KAP’s request without explaining why.
“After a careful examination of the complaint that you had filed with the Competition Bureau on Oct. 1, 2007, regarding the higher fuel and fertilizer prices in Manitoba than North Dakota, it was determined that the complaint does not raise any issues under the Competition Act,” said a letter sent to KAP from the bureau.
“Consequently, I have discontinued further investigation.”
Fuel and fertilizer prices spiked this past year on the Prairies, but many farmers believed that U.S. prices were cheaper, and the strengthening Canadian dollar appeared to have no mitigating effect.
Some farmers began claiming there must be price fixing among agricultural input dealers or manufacturers. KAP did its own survey of input prices at a number of Manitoba locations and compared them to North Dakota prices, concluding that the Canadian prices were unacceptably high.
“It’s cost us millions of dollars that we’ve overpaid,” said McLean.
But input dealers, while sympathizing with farmers, don’t accept the idea that manufacturers are fixing prices, said David McKay, executive director of the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers.
“There are so many variables at play here that to try to chalk it up to price fixing or malfeasance is ridiculous,” said McKay.
The KAP study was too short term and localized to yield reasonable results, McKay said. Farm input dealers are much closer to the manufacturers than farmers are, but they haven’t seen inexplicable price movements, just the typical surges and falls of a market.
“We’d be the first to agree with the grower if we thought it was happening,” said McKay.
“We, too, have had to pay higher prices. … We’re in the middle. We’re in between the manufacturers and the grower.”
McKay said most farmers had already contracted their fertilizer supplies before the spring price hikes, so “not many people did pay those prices.”
Short-term spot prices can’t be used to represent long-term trends in any market, he said.
McLean said KAP will again raise its allegations of possible price fixing in inputs to the federal and provincial agriculture ministers.
