THE Canadian Wheat Board’s handling of the Prairie Pasta Producers file is a prime example of how not to win friends.
Prairie Pasta has tried for five years to find a way to make a dream a reality for Canadian durum growers who want to process their durum into pasta. With its narrow margins and strong competition, it is not an easy business to enter.
In the western Canadian context, a further complexity is that it must work within the CWB system. The relationship between Prairie Pasta and the CWB was strained from the start as the farmer group sought an exemption from the board’s buy-back rules.
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The board has received much criticism over its handling of the situation, not all of it deserved. It has made changes to accommodate Prairie Pasta, such as creating a streamlined buy-back procedure for new generation co-operatives, or NGCs. However, it always appeared to be acting reluctantly.
Consistently it has missed the opportunity to act as a helpful partner and to reap the public relations rewards that would follow. The latest development best illuminates this failing.
After Prairie Pasta closed a share offering that would allow it to buy a position in Dakota Growers Pasta Co. of Carrington, North Dakota, the group learned it wouldn’t qualify for the board’s NGC policy because it would invest in American, not Canadian processing.
Given that Prairie Pasta’s intention to ally itself with Dakota Growers had been known since 2000, it is incomprehensible that the group should be told about its ineligibility only after it closed its share offering.
CWB director Larry Hill’s admission that the relationship has been plagued by poor communications is an understatement. The board cannot carry on this attitude and maintain the grassroots support needed to survive challenges like those expected during World Trade Organization negotiations.
Farmers tend to elect pro monopoly candidates in wheat board elections, but in the recent federal election, most farmers voted Conservative, the party that advocated more market choice. Farmers are clearly equivocal about the board’s monopoly.
To win stronger support, the board must show it can help make farmers’ dreams come true. It may have statistics that show wheat and durum milling have increased within the board’s monopoly, but it won’t shed its image of being an impediment to processing until a producer-owned durum and pasta project is successfully launched.
Board support won’t guarantee success. The pasta industry is overcrowded and recently has been staggered by a sharp drop in consumption because of the popularity of low-carb diets.
But the board can ensure that it presents no bureaucratic hurdles and acts as a problem solver, not a problem maker.
