DUNSEITH, N.D. — More than 200 North Dakota farmers braved bitter cold here last week to protest Canadian grain moving into their markets.
“It’s a prairie fire — it ain’t too warm, but it’s moving,” said organizer Jim Diepolder as he rallied farmers at the International Peace Gardens spanning the Canada-U.S. border.
Bundled in snowmobile suits and waving placards, the farmers demonstrated for nearly an hour between the two border points while their politicians assured them by speaker telephone from Washington their voices were heard.
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American senator Byron Dorgan said he would introduce legislation to repeal the agricultural section of the Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement and immediately invoke 50 percent import tariffs on durum under Section 22 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act.
“We don’t want any part of a trade agreement that is unfair to us,” Dorgan told cheering farmers.
The protest, one of two last week at border crossings between Manitoba and North Dakota, was sparked by the dramatic increase in truck traffic carrying wheat and durum into North Dakota elevators over the past three months.
Canadian Grain Commission statistics show Canada exported 1.3 million tonnes of wheat, durum and barley into the U.S. between last August and Dec. 31 — an increase of 66 percent over the same period last year.
The U.S. farmers claim the influx of Canadian grain is driving down local prices, reducing their delivery opportunities and increasing the cost of U.S. farm support programs by upwards of $600 million.
Lawson Jones, president of the North Dakota Durum Growers Association, and other speakers at the rally stressed they weren’t angry with Canadian farmers.
But he said U.S. farmers shouldn’t have to compete against a single-desk selling agency such as the Canadian Wheat Board.
“The Canadians have said it doesn’t matter what’s fair, it’s what you can negotiate,” Jones told cheering farmers. “I don’t think the American farmer agrees.
“A single-desk selling system by its very nature tries to cheat the system,” Jones said. “It beats the competition over the knees with a tire iron rather than play by the rules.”
Lorne Hehn, chief commissioner of the Canadian Wheat Board, said Canada is breaking no trade rules by exporting into the U.S. But he understands why U.S. farmers are upset.
“I think farmers by and large view that elevator … as their opportunity to market,” he said. “They actually view Canada as taking away their ability to market.”
But Hehn said exports are up because the Americans’ Export Enhancement Program is creating supply shortages of durum within the U.S. while at the same time deflating world prices.
Processors are drawing in Can-adian durum to fill the gap. On the feed grain side, unusually tight stocks of corn in the U.S. have boosted domestic prices, creating a market for feed wheat as an alternative.
As well, favorable exchange rates and a different grading system have prompted an unprecedented number of Canadian farmers to buy their low-quality wheat back from the board and sell it in the U.S.
Douglas Lemieux, a farmer from Willow City, N.D., said there has always been some Canadian grain moving into American markets, but until recently “it was always done in an orderly fashion.
“In the last three months we’ve seen a lot of Canadians dumping grain down here, and it’s really upsetting our markets.”
