And that's that | The Western Producer

Well, the results of the Canadian Wheat Board plebiscite are in and it’s good news for the board. Here’s the press release, just unveiled:

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2011 – Winnipeg, MB – The results of the 2011 Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) Producer Plebiscite were announced today by Plebiscite Coordinator Ian Craven of MNP LLP.

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The outcome of the Plebiscite was as follows:

For wheat:

22,764 producers (62 per cent of respondents who grew wheat) said they wish to maintain the ability to market all wheat, with the continuing exception of feed wheat sold domestically, through the CWB single-desk system.
14,059 producers (38 per cent of respondents who grew wheat) said they wish to remove the single-desk marketing system from the CWB and sell all wheat through an open-market system.

For barley:

6,283 producers (51 per cent of respondents who grew barley) said they wish to maintain the ability to market all barley, both malting/food, with the continuing exception of feed barley sold domestically, through the CWB single-desk system.

6,014 producers (49 per cent of respondents who grew barley) said they wish to remove the single-desk marketing system from the CWB and sell all barley through an open-market system.

The vote was conducted across the CWB designated area in Western Canada, using a mail-in voting system. The participation rate for returned ballots was 56 per cent (55 per cent of those who grew wheat, 47 per cent of those who grew barley, and 60 per cent of those who grew both). The tabulation process identified 183 rejected envelopes that were determined to be invalid, and 301 spoiled ballots. Ballot tabulation was conducted in the presence of scrutineers representing major farm groups.

Details of the results of the 2011 CWB Producer Plebiscite can also be found on the plebiscite website at: cwbvote.ca.

(Ed White here again): That won’t be a surprise to most folks, with most farmers wanting wheat to be maintained under a monopoly structure but farmers evenly split on barley.

It won’t likely mean anything political, as the federal government shows no signs of going all wobbly on this one. But it’s nice for the historical record to see what farmers were thinking at this time. I don’t know how deeply the data will be revealed, or was collected, showing how many big, medium and small farmers voted which way, and how much of the overall acreage voted each way. I don’t think we’ll get to see that.

But as always, it shows farmers are split on this thing, that the wheat monopoly is generally popular, that the barley one is less so, and that substantial minorities are strongly opposed to the board monopolies.

So now it’s back to the political realm . . .