I spoke with Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz yesterday and he answered the questions I recently asked in my blog and in the newspaper: 1) What are you going to do? 2) When are you going to do it?
What I took from our conversation was that the government will break the export monopolies for both wheat and barley, but not until the 2012-13 crop year. And they’re going to endeavor to ensure that whatever system they replace the board monopolies with with not send the commercial system – including farmers – into confusion and disorder. So farmers’ marketing plans for the 2011-12 crop, whether that includes CWB Producer Payment Options or board pools, are not threatened. So no-one needs to panic.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
Here are his answers to my questions:
ON WHETHER CHANGES WOULD BE MADE FOR THE 2011-12 CROP YEAR
“I don’t think it could be done . . . It’s a very complex issue. There’s a number of other issues that need to be addressed. We’re not going to do this in a knee-jerk way. We want to make sure at the end of the day that we strengthen the economy of Western Canada and not put shakes or tremors through it.”
ON HOW THE GOVERNMENT WILL DEVELOP ITS NEW STRUCTURE FOR WHEAT AND BARLEY MARKETING
“We’re working with the industry groups that are affected right now and of course the provinces all want to have a few things to say in that, so we’re in the consultative phase and at the end of the day we want to develop a strategy that will strengthen the farm gate at the end of it. There are a number of issues that need to be clarified to create certainty in the marketplace. We want to make sure that at the end of the day we strengthen the economy at the farm gate and move forward.”
ON WHAT SPECIFICALLY NEEDS TO BE DONE RIGHT
“There are a number of issues that come to play with the board being involved in logistics, all those have to be worked out. The rail freight review changes somewhat if the board is not a single desk. These are all the types of situations that need to be worked out in the next short term.”
ON THE NATURE OF THE CWB AFTER THE MONOPOLIES ARE REMOVED, AND WHO WILL DECIDE ITS NATURE AND STRUCTURE
“I think it’ll be a combination of both (government legislation and industry-board decisions). Certainly there need to be parameters in place, perhaps with the government guarantee, situations like that, that need to be discussed. At the end of the day it may take a phasing in or out situation.”
ON THE PURPOSE OF THE PLANNED CHANGES
“Certainly we’ll work to the best interest of strengthening the farm gate in Western Canada. That’ll be the paramount objective. At the end of the day, there are a number of issues that need to be worked through, some in consultation with the grain industry, some at the farm gate. At the end of the day, we want to strengthen the economy and create that innovative investment climate in Western Canada that we see capitalized on with the canola industry and the pulse industry. We know it can be done. We know that right now the coarse grain industry is running behind. It needs to be brought back up to speed. We know that by moving forward from the single desk we can make that happen.”
