Frustration and despair over low grain prices are prompting some farmers in the United States to cast envious eyes north of the border.
Over the past decade, Canadian farmers have become accustomed to hearing their system roundly criticized by politicians and farm leaders from south of the border.
Now, some of those same voices are saying the solution to their problems may lie in setting up a grain pooling system based roughly on the Canadian Wheat Board model.
“It is ironic, but tough times demand new solutions,” said North Dakota governor Ed Schafer, who recently led a delegation of state officials to meet with the board officials in Winnipeg.
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Farmers are in a state of despair over low prices, he said in an interview from Bismarck, N.D., and are willing to look at anything that holds out the promise of better returns.
The campaign to set up a grain pool is being spearheaded by the N.D. Farmers Union. Its plan calls for a voluntary pool for hard red spring wheat and durum, under which farmers would receive a $1 per bushel premium the first year and 50 cents the second, as an incentive to participate.
Premium price
The union says a pool would allow farmers in the state to market their grain as a high quality, premium product and extract higher prices from buyers.
While the plan is a long way from being adopted, a farmers union spokesperson said it’s getting a good hearing from farmers of all political and philosophical persuasions.
“Times are so tough right now that nobody is coming out and saying ‘no way,’ ” said Mark Watne. “We have good support for a study. The opposition will come after the study.”
Schafer said he’s not ready to endorse the farmers union’s plan or any other. However the government has asked economists at North Dakota State University to do a feasibility study and report by next month.
One of the biggest hurdles will be figuring out how to get enough farmers involved to make a pool work.
“It seems reasonably clear that unless you have everybody in, the pool doesn’t work,” said Schafer, adding he is opposed to a mandatory pool and has serious concerns about using state funds to provide incentives or price guarantees.
The governor said it’s too early to say how much support there is for pooling among the state’s wheat farmers, who will want to hear more details before committing themselves either way.
“There’s a lot of chatter about it in the coffee shops and at the elevators. People aren’t saying ‘yup, I’ll sign up’.”
Neither Schafer nor the farmers union are suggesting U.S. farmers be allowed to deliver grain to the wheat board’s pool accounts, as has been suggested in some news reports.
For Canadians only
A wheat board spokesperson said the agency wouldn’t be interested in any such arrangement.
“The CWB is set up to market the grain that’s produced by Canadian farmers,” said Deanna Allen.
She said that under its new operating rules, the board could conceivably buy U.S. grain on the cash market in order to fill supply shortages, but it wouldn’t be part of the pool accounts.
At an Aug. 17 meeting in Winnipeg, a number of senior board officials, including two commissioners, met with Schafer, farmers union president Robert Carlson and several other state officials.
“It was interesting for a change to have a high level politician from the northern U.S. not saying how nasty we are,” Allen laughed.
The meeting was a chance to exchange information and ask questions, said Allen, with no specific proposal for any co-operative marketing programs. The board did agree to provide resource material and research to help the U.S. group evaluate the feasibility of setting up a state-wide pool.
