Everybody into the pool!
Not so fast, say some North Dakota wheat farmers.
A proposal by the N. D. Farmers Union to set up a voluntary marketing pool for wheat and durum has attracted lots of attention on both sides of the border.
The state government is conducting a feasibility study into the idea and governor Ed Schafer has met with Canadian Wheat Board officials to find out more about how the Canadian system works.
But an official with the state’s main wheat growers’ organization says the farmers union doesn’t speak for all grain farmers in North Dakota.
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“There are groups that don’t subscribe to this concept,” said Lance Gaebe, executive director of the N.D. Grain Growers Association.
The association is a voluntary organization representing about 2,000 of the state’s roughly 20,000 wheat and barley growers. It has been a vocal critic of the wheat board as an unfair, government-subsidized state trader.
Gaebe said part of the opposition is philosophical, among farmers who support a competitive, free enterprise system, and part of it is practical, among farmers who think a pool won’t work and won’t provide financial benefits.
“So we hold out for $4 a bushel? Montana farmers will be glad to sell for $3.95,” he said. “There are a lot of people who think it won’t or can’t happen unless it’s mandatory, which will not happen.”
However, he acknowledged there is a lot of interest in the idea of pooling, fueled by frustration and anger over low wheat prices.
“Some very conservative folks, who in normal times would be very opposed to any kind of what we’d consider a socialistic concept, are really looking for an answer now,” he said.
The farmers union proposal that farmers in the pool receive a $1 a bushel premium the first year and 50 cents the second has excited a lot of hard-pressed producers, said Gaebe, although he questioned whether the state has the resources to finance such a system of incentives.
There might be some potential benefits from pooling durum, since North Dakota produces about 76 percent of the United States crop, especially if there was some co-operation with the wheat board.
The grain growers’ association also has doubts about the idea that a pooling system would allow farmers to develop a better quality control system and extract premium prices from world markets. He said the wheat board usually undercuts U.S. prices.
“I have farmers who farm both sides of the line who certainly didn’t make more last year because of the wheat board system,” said Gaebe.
“They made less.”
