World trade talks are probably the furthest thing from the minds of farmers struggling to harvest their 2009 crop. However, the Canadian Wheat Board is urging prairie producers to familiarize themselves with the issues on the table at the World Trade Organization.
To that end, the board is spending $90,000 of farmers’ money on an information campaign and to provide farmers with cards to mail to their federal politicians.
“Farmers are busy with other things and they don’t follow this in the kind of detail we do,” said wheat board chair Larry Hill.
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“But they need to be aware of what’s happening at WTO and the potential effect on the CWB, which is their organization.”
The board’s campaign includes advertising in newspapers, radio and the internet and a full-page presentation in the board’s magazine, Grain Matters.
The mail-in cards are provided in Grain Matters and by the board’s farm business representatives at trade shows and other meetings.
The lobby is designed to tell the government to refuse to sign an agreement that would remove the wheat board’s export monopoly, as has been proposed in the WTO text now under discussion.
The government has said it won’t, and Hill said the lobbying campaign will demonstrate that farmers support that stance.
The CWB chair added he believes there is a broad consensus among farmers that the future of Canada’s grain marketing system should be determined in Canada by farmers rather than at the WTO by foreign governments and Canada’s competitors.
“All sides seem to support this and if the government gets a strong message from farmers, it will stiffen their resolve,” Hill said.
The board emphasized this is not about whether single desk marketing is the best system. Rather, it’s about who gets to decide how prairie farmers market their grain.
The CWB is urging producers to phone, write or e-mail federal agriculture and wheat board minister Gerry Ritz, international trade minister Stockwell Day and their local member of Parliament.
For more information, visit www.cwb.ca and click on the WTO box on the home page.
