CALGARY – The Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association wants to shake its image as a one trick pony.
In the eyes of some farmers, government and grain industry officials, the Regina-based commodity group is identified as an organization that spends most of its time criticizing the Canadian Wheat Board and campaigning for an end to single desk selling.
WCWGA officials say that’s more perception than reality, and insist that the organization has always been involved in a wide range of farm issues.
But they also acknowledge that the image created credibility problems among farmers and government and made the organization seem to be constantly critical and negative.
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“We’ve been labelled as a single-issue organization and maybe at times it seemed we were,” said former association president Ted Menzies. “We’ve been involved in a lot of positive things, but the wheat board issue made us seem very negative, saying the same thing over and over again.”
The association is hoping to change that with a new approach to policy development and communications.
The organization is setting up six policy committees, on marketing reform, environment, trade, farm income, technology and regulatory issues.
The committees would be headed by WCWGA directors, but would take on outside advisers, including representatives of industry and government, to provide expertise and help develop policy.
“One of the key things we hope to get from this new structure and policy process is to gain credibility and respect for the comments we’ll be making about the issues,” said association president Art Enns.
He said the association has been told by the federal government that its time and resources would be better spent developing sound policy positions rather than issuing press releases criticizing the wheat board.
“We don’t want to just criticize,” said Enns. “We want to come in with solid suggestions and recommendations.”
The result, he hopes, will be more credibility and influence with industry and government and a more relevant and positive image that will attract members.
In its heyday, the WCWGA claimed as many as 12,000 farmer members. That has fallen to between 4,000 and 5,000, which officials attribute to a declining farm population and the financial problems faced by grain producers.
Longtime association member Bill Cooper, who signed up when the old Palliser Wheat Growers Association was founded in the early 1970s, said the changes are a good idea.
Because the association has always been in the forefront of the fight over the wheat board, he said, its work in areas like safety nets and the environment have been largely ignored.
Association officials emphasize that the organization has no intention of backing off from its strong opposition to single desk selling.
Nevertheless, its new approach to policy making was welcomed by CWB director Ross Keith, who described it as “very constructive” and expressed hope it might contribute to more co-operation among farmers by reducing the focus on the contentious issue of grain marketing.
“We need to get past this idea that if you disagree on the wheat board you can’t work together on anything else,” he said, adding farmers probably agree on 85 percent of the issues out there.
