Higher prices
Hats off to Chuck Strahl. His actions will finally give western farmers like other Canadians the right to sell our products to whomever we chose.
If the (Canadian) Wheat Board does the best job, it will be the buyer. I would like to state a few reasons why I think it will not be.
Using canola as an example, I have always obtained what I thought was a fair price, and canola prices over the last 30 years has shown a gradual increase. Under the CWB, wheat and barley prices have not. Contracts with canola crushers have always been honoured while only the farmer must honour wheat board contracts.
Read Also
Crop insurance’s ability to help producers has its limitations
Farmers enrolled in crop insurance can do just as well financially when they have a horrible crop or no crop at all, compared to when they have a below average crop
With freedom to sell feed grains to feed mills and feedlots, we have in a very short time developed in Alberta a domestic market that makes wheat board prices look like a very bad joke
Wheat board initial barley prices started at 67 cents per bushel less delivery but have since increased to $2.04.
In over 50 years of farming I have never before seen a 300 percent increase. Do you suppose the upcoming vote may be part of the reason?
This price is still only about 60 percent of local feedlot offers. All predictions are that milling wheat will bring more net dollars if sold locally for pig and chicken feed this year, and feeders pay in full on delivery, not two-thirds down and the balance next year if things go right. I remember vividly when our board barley and calves were shipped east for finishing along with all the related jobs. In the few short years since, Alberta beef has established itself as the finest in the world.
If history is a teacher, our world class beef will be followed by a multitude of other products like barley malt, flour, pasta, peas, beans and other value-added products like biodiesel and ethanol. I fear if the wheat board wins this dual market struggle, it will again try to monopolize the sales of canola….
I know hundreds of farmers in central Alberta and could count on one hand single desk supporters, but even if a majority of prairie farmers were to support this monopoly, there would be no reason to impose their will on the rest of us.
We do not live or farm communally, support the same government or buy the same brand of equipment. Why do they insist on selling my grain?
I look forward to the upcoming barley vote and challenge anyone who votes for the single desk to sell their barley to the board. They will receive a bit over 50 percent of current feedlot price now, and a final payment in a year or so. Final payments in the past have not been very large.
I hope the outcome of this vote will show the distrust of the board by barley growers.
Thank you, Chuck Strahl. You are the first bright light on the marketing scene in my 53 years as a farmer.
– Don Hansen,
Eckville, Alta.
Paying bills
Freedom is a great thing. But does it pay the bills?
There have been a number of studies from the University of Saskatchewan and others regarding the economic gains farmers achieve with a single desk marketing system over multiple sellers, mostly U.S. multinational companies.
The latest by Price Waterhouse Cooper is that a single desk contributes $1.6 billion more revenue for Western Canada than would a multiple selling system. Look at the five year average production numbers for the three provinces.
Manitoba: Barley at 1.15 tonnes, wheat at 3.58 tonnes.
Alberta: Barley at 4.8 tonnes, wheat at 6.8 tonnes, for a total of 11.6 tonnes. But if you take into account the large feeding industry in Alberta, that at times cannot supply enough barley to meet the demand and have to import barley from other provinces and import corn from the U.S., their total tonnage for export could be substantially less.
Saskatchewan: Total wheat and barley production at 15.3 tonnes even though we have to supplement wheat and barley acreages by peas and other crops from previous years when world prices for wheat were low and other producers were subsidized by their governments.
You can plainly see that Saskatchewan will take the biggest hit if the CWB single desk was removed.
There is enough competition in the world without Canadian producers competing with each other. This will not only affect producers but reduce the dollars to everyone that supplies input to producers.
– Avery Sahl,
Mossbank, Sask.
Hopper control
Further to my quotes in the article, New hopper control uses native fungus (WP, Feb. 8).
While I have been fortunate that grasshoppers have not caused me major problems in my relatively short career as an organic farmer, I should not have left the impression that research on biological grasshopper control is without merit, or is something I would not use myself if necessary.
Grasshopper damage has been a problem for some organic farmers and Dan Johnson’s work at the University of Lethbridge on biological control may prove to be a welcome tool.
Given proper testing and precautions, (and for organic use, approval under organic standards), this work appears to be a step in the right direction in the elimination of toxic pesticides.
– Doug Bone,
Elrose, Sask.
Transformed barley
In the Jan. 25 issue was a letter from Art Mainil of Benson.
His last paragraph said it all. If all the CWB supporters are so gung ho about the CWB, why do they grow open market crops?
I had some barley in 2006 that was feed here in Canada. No chance that it was malting. By some sort of magic, when it crossed the line it turned into malt, thereby paying me $5 a bushel. Makes a person wonder if farmers here in Canada that have malting and it somehow turns into feed, was it really used as feed or did the farmer get shafted?
When my dad harvested in the United States in 1945, he stated farmers there were hauling wheat direct to elevator from the combine and receiving $5 per bu. while in Canada here were receiving approximately $1.50 due to Canada making an agreement with England, therefore were on the short end of the world price.
The CWB has been swindling the farmers ever since, although the last few years they’re a bit more subtle about it.
Did I approve of the CWB employees getting a $1,000 bonus before Christmas 2006? No. Did the farmers of Western Canada have a say in that gift? No.
If the employees of CWB were so stressed, they were free to quit and find another job.
– Don Vogel,
Weyburn, Sask.
Good ballot
For once I see there is going to be a vote for farmers that is going to be decided by farmers.
I believe the CWB has run its course and is long overdue to be thrown out. But when it comes to voting I think I will have to vote for Option 2: I would like the option to market my barley to the CWB or any other domestic or foreign buyer.
I feel it’s not my right to tell my fellow farmers what they have to do with their grain. I also feel it’s not up to my fellow farmers to decide what I should do with my grain.
– Jim Campbell,
Central Butte, Sask.
Best option
Regarding the Conservative’s barley plebiscite, the different options of marketing barley for domestic human consumption and export can be compared with marketing retail gasoline at the service station pumps.
Option No. 1: The price is the same at all the pumps and it goes up or down simultaneously at all the pumps. This resembles single desk marketing or orderly marketing. This is good for the sellers and not good for the buyers.
Option No. 3: On rare occasions, the competing sellers take the freedom to independently lower their own prices to attract buyers; otherwise known as a gas price war. This is good for buyers and not good for sellers.
Option No. 2: “I would like to have my cake and eat it too.” Since the CWB is only a single desk selling agent this option is illogical. Logic tells us that Option No. 2 will become Option No. 3.
Grain farmers are the sellers, so which option is the best for us?
– Hans R. Nickel,
Borden, Sask.
Brain wash
Voting for freedom is nothing less than another brainwashing experiment. We need more choices, but how about choice that works for us?
Farmers need to make a stand now, to start owning things like grain cars and ships, loading and processing terminals. We need a say in subsidy and insurance programs and the right to parity prices like everyone else. We have the organization that can do this, an over-staffed conglomeration called the CWB, but if we try to keep it mandatory it will fail, just as it always has.
Farmers need to own and control it by selling memberships and share commitments to anyone who is interested. Only by building up sufficient capital and working together can we realize the advantages of self processing and selling bulk commodities.
With the monopoly gone we would have all our own markets. Why not sell directly on the futures instead of allowing everyone else to control us? Commodity fund selling is the common denominator in gutting grain prices over the last 25 years and will only continue unless we start buying grain futures and, if necessary, force delivery.
Would you like to attend regular meetings and help decide how much we should get for our grain or streamline our gouging handling and transportation systems and modernize the archaic way we sell grain?
Not all farmers will agree. No one knows how much we could really accomplish. This is what we call freedom, but if you would like to do anything, then you should realize this is the only opportunity we may ever have.
Many farmers believe the CWB cannot survive an open market. They are wrong.
– Louis K. Berg,
Sedalia, Alta.
My CWB includes…
Price pooling has been one of the pillars of the Canadian Wheat Board. The CWB markets grain to 70 countries around the world.
Pooling is a risk management strategy which allows producers to sell grain throughout the year without concern for the highs and lows which will occur. Producers need not worry about the downward pressure on grain prices during harvest. The pooling of sales also guarantees that each producer receives a share of the profits from high value markets.
Obviously the return from pooling grain sales is an average of sales to all customers throughout the year. Half of the sales will be above the average and half will be below. In a rising market, the spot price will always be above the pool average, and in a falling market the spot price will always be below the pool average.
Sales which are made at a relatively high spot price in a rising market will contribute to a rising pool average, however the pool price will always lag behind.
If you try to run a voluntary pool system in a rising market, sellers will choose to exit the pool, preventing the pool from rising and widening the spread between the pool and the spot market. This will drive more sellers to choose the spot market and further prevent the pool from reflecting the strength in the market.
Conversely, if you tried to run a voluntary pool in a falling market, the pool will reflect historically higher sales and will be more attractive sellers. Additional volumes of grain offered to the pool will drive the value of the pool down. In both instances the value of the pool is disadvantaged.
The CWB has recognized that producers want options outside of the pooling system. The structure of the various pricing options offered by the CWB gives producers the ability to price their grain outside of the pooling system while maintaining the integrity and advantages of pooling….
My vision of the future has the CWB as my marketing partner. The CWB is committed to building equity in the region and has a corporate social responsibility driven by its farmer elected board of directors.
Together we are stronger and the advantages and flexibility of an open market can be offered under the single desk system.
The barley plebiscite is designed to divide and conquer and will deliver higher profits to the corporate friends of the Harper government.
– Rod Flaman,
CWB Director, District 8,
Edenwold, Sask.
Big problems
Yes, the whole grain industry is again in big problems as in the late 1950s era.
The Canadian Wheat Board (is) again the issue and while a group started the ethanol route to use up grain and to help the fuel era, (it is) now about to create problems.
I became interested in three Toronto universities’ work on gasification of wheat by those new processes to turn out value added products. (In) the 1980 era our group was formed and their business plan became a processing plant for expanded carbon bead from wheat and charcoal for baroquing building material.
We can use up poor quality grain such as frozen wheat, waste landfill, etc. The gases can be used to run the planet and excess turned into ethanol, the very subject that the president of the United States mentioned in his latest address to help U.S. energy problems.
I’m not going to dwell upon this subject but if the wheat board issue turns out bad, here is a way out, farmers.
– Ralph Sweet,
Wiseton, Sask.
What democracy?
After reading several letters supporting monopoly in the Western Producer, I have come to the realization that some people don’t seem to know the meaning of democracy.
Even though they support the board monopoly as it exists, it is not democratic. The monopoly the CWB now enjoys and has the past 60 years was not introduced to help farmers receive top dollar for their product. It was not established because farmers voted for it. It was a war measure act to ensure that Great Britain received an adequate supply of affordable grain….
The initial, interim and final payments from the board have to receive cabinet approval. I ask you who owns the wheat and barley grown on the Prairies? Farmers who grow it or the state run organization called the CWB?
If you as farmers take “your” wheat across the U.S. border and sell it to another grain handler without prior arrangement with this state-run organization, you will have visitors from the state run police. Sound democratic to you? Doesn’t to me.
Some say that the CWB is farmer run. I don’t see it that way. One third of the directors are appointed by the government, as well as its CEO. You would not say that our government is run by the people if one-third of the MPs and the prime minister were appointed by the governor general….
If the CWB does an excellent job of marketing our grain, is accountable to us as producers and delivers a premium for our products, then I’m sure that it will survive in a dual marketing system.
It seems hypocritical that there are laws preventing monopoly in other economic sectors while the government staunchly protects a grain monopoly. Currently, the board has only to be accountable, efficient and competitive to satisfy who? If you’re not happy, you can’t take your business elsewhere.
Change comes with time and progress and yes, the CWB has changed over the years, but the time has come to allow prairie farmers the freedom that democracy affords its citizens.
– Shirley Hagstrom,
New Norway, Alta.
Still waiting
The solution to the controversy over the CWB’s monopoly on the marketing of their grain is to allow producers to vote on the issue.
The CWB is a grain marketer and does not have storage facilities. In a dual marketing system the CWB would not survive.
When the Crow Rate was being dismantled the wheat and barley growers associations supported removal of the Crow as the increased competition would reduce freight rates. They also supported amalgamation of the Pool elevator system.
I am still waiting for the reduced freight rates and the higher prices due to increased efficiency of the new grain companies.
AgPro (Sask Pool) has announced plans to buy all outstanding shares of Agricore. This will not benefit grain producers. Competition controls prices in the marketplace and corporations try to buy up their competitors to minimize competition.
If you find a niche market for your grain and gain a higher price, just watch how fast that niche market ends when other farmers offer their grain for one cent per bushel cheaper.
The world grain market is no longer run by supply and demand but by speculators. They work on a margin and do not care if they make 10 cents a bu. on $6 or $3 wheat. In fact, lower prices make for a more active market.
I would like to know why the U.S. is so dedicated to the end of the wheat board. Obviously they have the success of the Canadian farmer as a top priority.
The large grain companies really would prefer farmers to sell into a stressed market as it promotes a higher basis. How would the cash advance system be handled to prevent cash flow problems in the fall?
– Robert Kampen,
Lougheed, Alta.
Intolerable rates
Re: two national railways overcharged prairie farmers by some $4.2 million for hauling grain in the 2005-2006 crop year. (WP Jan. 4.)
I am a producer of cheap food for the rest of the world and this is the third consecutive year that the rail companies have overcharged farmers for freight on their grain. It is frustrating and I am very disappointed that this continues to happen.
Since the grain companies consolidated, they are able to accommodate 100 car spots to load grain. This was supposed to create considerable savings for them, which in turn was to save farmers money. We have never felt the results of this. It cost me freight charges of $2,843.46 to move 2,272 bushels of wheat. This is legal robbery….
So, the two rail companies will pay what they overcharged into the coffers of the Western Grains Research Foundation.
We farmers already contribute to research threefold. We pay through the government with our taxation dollars; we pay through checkoffs when we sell our grain; and then we pay dearly for new varieties of grain and oilseeds to grow that are made available through research…
As for the elevator companies and their consolidation, handling charges have tripled. On that same 2,272 bu. of wheat there was $1,099.65 handling charges. This included weighing and inspecting the grain and elevating and cleaning charges.
So, on my 2,272 bu. of No. 2 wheat, I should have received $6,773.15, but with freight and handling deducted, I took home $3,201.17.
It is intolerable that the railways continue to exceed their revenue cap limit on freight. How can we as farmers continue on the land when we are at the mercy of huge grain companies and the railways?
– Lyle Birch,
Weekes, Sask.
BSE testing
In his December report, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association president Hugh Lynch Staunton commented on the reasons the CCA remains opposed to voluntary BSE testing for market access.
For three years, CCA’s stand against testing has been based mainly on the grounds that if we test for market access, we will shatter consumer confidence in the domestic supply.
Nonsense. We could very effectively win the approval of domestic consumers regarding BSE testing for market access. The taxpaying consumer has propped up the Canadian beef industry to the tune of billions of dollars in the past three and one half years, and they would immediately recognize the sense in producers marketing their way out of the hole they’re in, rather than continuing to reach into taxpayers’ pockets.
To the contrary, even if a percentage of Canadian consumers demanded BSE tested beef product, we now have three struggling Canadian-owned slaughter plants operating in Canada, all of whom would have the opportunity to test for marketing purposes, and would gladly supply that Canadian demand. Thus far, they’ve not been allowed because American big beef and CCA have not sanctioned it.
The CCA president cites added cost to processors as another reason not to BSE test. This is a very weak argument. Years past, we were forced to deal with E. coli and did. We did not cripple the industry with the added processing costs associated with carcass wash, scientific procedures to safeguard the public, or periodically destroying entire shipments of contaminated product. …
The added carcass value and expanded market opportunities we stand to gain from testing will far offset any associated cost, and I submit that packers will profit as much or more than producers, especially our new and struggling Canadian packers. …
Lynch Staunton claims that testing is not a definitive science because of false positives. A Swiss company, Prionics AG, has had a test on the market for four years and after millions of applications, has not yet experienced a false positive. …
Voluntary BSE testing today may be the only act of redemption we can fall back on in a few short years should science further prove big beef’s sound science to be bogus…. Science is slowly proving our science based approach wrong, and Canadian producers are paying the price. I fear that one of the multi national processors controlling the Canadian cattle industry will soon announce that the time to test has arrived. CFIA and CCA would fall quickly into line…
We need to show our two new agriculture ministers in Canada that the majority of Canadian beef cattle owners are indeed in favour of BSE testing for market access.
– Cam Ostercamp
President,
Beef Initiative Group
Blackie, Alta.
Propaganda?
With Chuck Strahl’s news releases and his anti-wheat board propaganda, I have to comment. Our family farms in the Glaslyn area in northwest Saskatchewan. We have grown wheat, barley, canola and oats and raised cattle for 31 years.
Last crop year, open market barley in our area was approximately $1.43 per bushel. Canadian Wheat Board feed barley (early payment option) was $1.92 to $2.05 per bu. depending when you signed the contract.
With the CWB director election just past and now the barley plebiscite, we see that Strahl and the Conservatives have the idea that they can again tamper with the election process.
During the director election, Mr. Strahl took 16,000 farmers’ names off the voters list. (He) also made it very difficult for the 16,000 farmers to get back on the voter’s list and at a cost (for) gas, notary public fees, etc. Approximately 43,000 farmers’ names remained on the election list. Mr. Strahl thought by tampering with the voter’s list that anti-monopoly directors would be elected. He was wrong, 80 percent of the directors elected were CWB monopoly supporters.
Now, during the barley plebiscite, he has a ballot that is worded with a slant for open market support. A delay of the mail out of ballots. Now an addition of approximately 40,000 voters, making a total of approximately 83,000 voters, have been put on the voters list.
Mr. Strahl thinks by playing around with the larger voters list that he can dismantle the CWB.
Farmers, let’s not be fooled. What Chuck Strahl and the Conservatives are doing is nothing more than turning the Canadian grain business over to the multi-national grain companies that are mostly controlled by U.S. grain companies.
Chuck Strahl is using our tax dollars to spread anti-wheat board propaganda. Grain companies and the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange are now spreading an open market slant against the CWB while Chuck Strahl has placed a gag order on the CWB….
Under NAFTA there is no going back to a CWB. Why do U.S. farmers need such high subsidies if the open market is so great? The grain companies and brokers prosper in an open market environment. The same people that wanted to eliminate the Crow Rate for moving grain to export and told us that farmers would have more money in their jeans are now telling us that a dual market will work. Both ideas are completely false.
The CWB does approximately $3 billion to $6 billion worth of sales for farmers. The multinational grain companies want a piece or all of the action.
Remember to vote single desk.
– David Bailey,
Glaslyn, Sask.
Hard to figure
Politicians. It’s hard to figure them out. Take Chuck Strahl, for instance. He’s a Conservative, a hard-nosed dollars-and-cents kind of guy, wouldn’t you think? Probably all about business and no time for nonsense.
Well, apparently not, at least not as far as grain marketing is concerned.
Mr. Strahl seems determined that he’s not going to let the Canadian Wheat Board keep selling grain on our behalf through a single desk system.
We think that system puts more money in our pockets. Some learned economists think so, too.
Independent studies at the University of Saskatchewan and elsewhere put the benefits in the millions of dollars annually.
And producers of other commodities want monopolies for their production. Middle East oil producers have one. None of them have to wait for CAIS (Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization) payments to pay their bills.
So if Mr. Strahl wants to do away with the single desk, you’d think he’d have some pretty compelling numbers to show the benefits of his plan. Nope. Nothing. Well, nothing but politics, that is.
In fact, Mr. Strahl’s plan is all about politics. He has friends who want to slip across the border and sell grain in the U.S. They say it’s their right.
Of course, that would deny the rest of us our collective right to have all the grain sold through a single desk and bring home more money in total. But Mr. Strahl doesn’t seem to care about money; it’s the politics that matters.
Could it have been politics, not economics, that guided the minister’s hand during the CWB director elections last fall?
His intervention eliminated 16,000 bona fide producers from the voters list, denying them their democratic right.
Now for the barley plebiscite it suits his fancy to include anyone who has ever grown barley in recent memory, even if they haven’t the slightest intention of ever marketing it internationally or for malt….
So if Mr. Strahl wants to play politics with our livelihood, why not send him a political message?
In the plebiscite, let’s vote an overwhelming yes for a strong single desk CWB. Politics for Chuck, good economics for us.
– Jim Metherell,
Lashburn, Sask.
Elusive freedom
I’m tired of the constant whining of the Jolly-Nagel types who support the Harper government’s effort to destroy the single desk selling option of the Canadian Wheat Board.
The main plank in the whiners’ platform seems to be freedom of choice. Well, in this world is there any real freedom of choice?
As babies our birth must be registered, when we die a doctor must sign our death certificate. When we drive, our vehicles must be licensed, and we must have a driver’s licence verifying we are qualified to drive it.
But it doesn’t end there. If we don’t want to be ticketed, we pay attention to speed limits and signs. We need a licence for our dog, a licence to get married. …
We don’t have the freedom of choice to shoot the bank manager who refused to renew our shaky loan. Or the neighbour whose bull got in with our herd of open heifers. We can’t even shoot his bull, though the idea of doing that might be tempting…
Those who support the Harper government’s attempts to get rid of the CWB’s single desk selling option, on the grounds that as producers they deserve freedom of choice, should clear their brains and learn the facts. They already have freedom to choose.
The CWB has a number of selling options available to sellers now. So stop whining and mouthing coffee shop platitudes and ask some pertinent questions.
Why are Stephen Harper and Chuck Strahl so determined to undermine the effectiveness of something that has proved its worth to western Canadian grain farmers many times over? What does the Harper government hope to gain …?
Are they in bed with the multinational grain companies who would benefit hugely by the demise of the CWB’s single desk selling option? Or, does the Harper government operate on the “father-knows-best” premise that farmers are too stupid to know what’s good for them? …
So what’s the real reason behind the Conservative government attempts to destroy the CWB? Is it driven only by the whining and muttering of those whose only plank seems to be freedom of choice? Or something more sinister?
– M. J. Burpee,
Hughenden, Alta.
Battery cages
Re: Maple Leaf moves to open housing (WP, Feb. 8.)
Congratulations to Maple Leaf for their pledge to phase out the use of cruel gestation crates for sows. This is the right thing to do.
Companies in Canada who sell eggs need to follow suit and pledge to phase out the use of cruel battery cages.
The sheer number of animals involved (26 million) makes it imperative that this be done as soon as possible.
As with sows, the science is clear. Dr. Ian Duncan, chair in Animal Welfare, Department of Animal and Poultry Science at the University of Guelph, who has been doing research on battery cages since 1966, is unequivocal in his criticism of this system.
In his opinion, battery cages are not a good environment in which to keep laying hens as they compromise their welfare in myriad ways, including provoking extreme frustration prior to laying an egg due to the lack of a suitable nesting site.
The writing is on the wall and the sooner industry takes action, the closer it will be to restoring the faith of consumers in Canada’s food production system.
– Debra Probert,
Executive Director,
Vancouver Humane Society
Vancouver, B.C.
Redefine progress
I am a first generation Canadian, born and raised on a Manitoba farm in the early 1930s.
I did not take up farming as my livelihood, however I did learn to recognize that farm life can be extremely rewarding in so many different ways. I also learned to appreciate and realize that water and nature were to be treated with the utmost respect and courtesy and with a sense of dignity.
Now retired, I, along with so many, have become very concerned and worried how those once valued principles have deteriorated and crumbled.
Corporations and their investors have taken over, interested only in benefiting from the current unsustainable economic activity. Huge hog producing factories and massive feedlots threaten our health, water and environment.
Part of the problem is that our economy, our governments and our society do not account for the social and environmental consequences that are being experienced and inflicted upon the communities and our precious water sources.
The rivers of yesterday in Manitoba provided a means of transportation, a source of food and clean water. Today the rivers are regarded, for the most part, as handy and open-air sewers, someplace to dump the leftovers. …
Now the rural people of Manitoba have a common purpose that brings them together to face a shared enemy and the malignant forces of the expansionism of corporations and industries. For the people now have come to realize that the future of our generations are at stake and the risks cannot be tolerated any longer.
I agree with a competitive and profitable agriculture industry, but never at the expense of our health, our waters and the environment.
Feeding the world with pork and exploiting and destroying our resources in the process is just not acceptable. In fact, it is very irresponsible, ignorant and immoral.
It seems to me that nature is literally screaming about the impact that we are putting on her, yet we think wistfully of what has been lost and dismiss it as the price of progress.
It’s about time we started to put moral ethics back into our present day society. Also, it’s about time we started redefining progress.
– John Fefchak,
Virden, Man.
CWB fiasco
The Conservative government could not have approached the Canadian Wheat Board issue in a more antagonistic way. Their closed door, taxpayer-funded meeting in Saskatoon of antiboard groups, to devise a plan to dismantle the CWB without prior farmer consultation, demonstrated a “we have an agenda, to hell with what farmers think” attitude.
I remind you that the CWB Act insists on a farmer vote before any changes to the CWB mandate are made.
The 15 member board of directors of the CWB has generally seen the five government appointees bring valuable skills to the table. Minister Strahl has simply fired any board members, including the CEO, who do not agree with his minority government’s flawed dual market mantra.
The minister has ignored the fact that the board of directors of the CWB is charged with operating the CWB in the interests of the farmers who fund it, not in the interest of the minister. ….
I’m personally relieved to see that the task force on the CWB has finally put an end to the Conservative lie of a dual market. The promise that a strong viable CWB and an open market can exist together is nonsense. We will either market our wheat and barley co-operatively through a single desk that is charged with maximizing and returning all profits to farmers or we will embrace the four or five large transnationals that control over 80 percent of global trade.
Western Canadian farmers are totally export dependant, producing four to six times what we consume domestically. Over the course of a year the CWB will sell our products into 60-70 different countries at different prices.
The farmer that spies one price at one time and one location (say a northern U.S. elevator) and thinks that he/she alone deserves that price is naïve. …
The CWB’s involvement in rail car allocation and producer car administration has been critical to farmer built facilities on the Prairies. Seventy-five percent of the Port of Churchill’s shipments are CWB grain that saves us some $1.4 million in freight annually. Without a strong CWB to allocate this business, the grain companies, who do not own the Churchill port, will naturally use their own port facilities …
As well, we collectively saved some $23 million in freight and handling in 2005-06 through CWB tenders. Without a strong CWB, can we expect these efficiencies to be directed to farmers?
…As an organic farmer, I have some problems with the process and cost of doing producer direct sales through the CWB. But it’s nonsense to throw the baby out with the bath water. Producers and the CWB need to resolve our disagreements, not Ottawa….
– Lyle Wright,
Kerrobert, Sask.
Climate song
Global warming is the hot topic of today. For years now they have been singing the song. Now they sing a new song called climate change.
The federal government talks of stopping climate change but this would require control over the ever-changing orbit of the earth around the sun.
Lack of understanding of a climate change, the power of nature and overconfidence in the ability of science and technology lead to this kind of arrogance. Governments forget that nature is always in control. …
Severe weather has and always will happen. The general pattern of weather in Canada is controlled by north/south waves in the jet stream, the shape of the waves and where they cross the Rocky Mountains…
Abnormal weather is normal weather. We don’t hear anything about regions having normal weather. That simply isn’t news….
In 1931 I was told winter was very mild, rain and very little snow. And in 1941 part of the dry cycle was very dry and mild, this happened before global warming.
In 2002 we had a very cold year, temperature below normal much like in 1903-07. October was the coldest since 1925, farmers were unable to get harvest done, but still no global warming.
Environment Canada tells us that the last 11 years (are the) warmest on record. These people can adjust the figures, like the politicians, to suit themselves. 2004 was the coldest year in 120 years. Over all there is no evidence that extreme weather events or climate variability has increased in a global sense through the 20th century.
– Arnold Helgeson,
Southey, Sask.
Weak knees
In a report on the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan annual meeting (Gull Lake Advance, Dec. 12), president Ken McBride laid it out for the delegates, stating it isn’t good enough just to identify problems; you also have to be involved in finding solutions.
After McBride said all that, the provincial agriculture minister, Mark Wartman, at the same meeting tried but failed to convince the delegates it would be in their financial interest to take a stand in support of the Canadian Wheat Board.
Said president McBride in defence of the delegates (Leader Post, Dec. 1): “APAS has farmers who feel strongly on both sides of the issue.”
How’s that for finding a solution? Are these guys for real? What kind of a weak-kneed position is that on this important issue that could end up costing grain farmers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost income?
The CWB is the only marketing power grain producers have on the world scene. To lose that power can only strengthen the hand of multinational grain companies and speculators.
In fact, Bay Street investors are already buying grain company stocks, expecting the end of the single desk could translate into higher profits for grain handlers (Western Producer, Feb. 9).
When grain companies take a larger share of the profits from the grain business, guess who can expect less?
Is it true that in some municipalities, farmers are compelled to support this APAS with their tax dollars?
– Henry Neufeld,
Waldeck, Sask.
Trust judgment
Re: Three questions for the barley vote.
We now have a chance as farmers to regain freedom and choice in marketing our barley. (Federal agriculture minister Chuck) Strahl has introduced a plebiscite with three questions, briefly the Canadian Wheat Board as it is now, a voluntary CWB in an open choice environment, or no CWB at all as pertaining to barley.
Immediately, the CWB and its proxies went ballistic. Histrionics everywhere – the board can’t survive, Mr. Strahl is a bad man, the questions are all lies and deceit.
Many of us who want choice believe that a voluntary CWB cannot only survive but be active and effective.
Past this fundamental difference, there is another very revealing concept I would like to outline. We, as choice supporters, also believe that farmers are fully knowledgeable, informed and experienced enough to make up their own minds about the survival of the CWB in a voluntary environment. In short, we trust their judgment.
Consider the CWB and its proxies. They clearly feel that they are all-knowing, infallible, and unfailingly correct in all their pronouncements. Hence, because they know all this, there is no need to ask the regular farmer. They have already decided for them if a voluntary CWB can work.
They don’t trust you to come up with the right answer. Their position is debasing and demeaning to you, the farmer. Speak of anti-democratic.
So in considering your vote, who should you listen to for some positive ideas – those who will seek and respect your opinion or those that have already decided it for you?
Ultimately it comes down to getting your vote sent in. You may be disgusted with the whole CWB system as it currently exists. Now is your one chance to change it, so please vote.
Remember, policy is made by those who show up.
– Curtis Sims,
MacGregor, Man.
Heavy handed
It seems there is a strong lobby to take barley away from the Canadian Wheat Board.
Mr. Strahl has set up biased media coverage, fired the CEO, hand picked a replacement, refused to accord the CWB board of directors regulatory process of business, and is using the Canadian government as a hammer to get his message home.
You would wonder why this heavy handed attitude about selling barley. Mr. Strahl isn’t jumping all over everybody’s rights when it comes to paying out Saskatchewan’s equalization that was promised to us in the same election platform.
Does he have a hidden international/U.S. lobby that he is listening to? How is it that Mr. Strahl seems to be the most powerful member in Parliament, that he can have order-in-council motions made to override business regulations and farmers’ rights? …
If the CWB is stripped of barley sales, this would leave them in a weaker position on the global market. If the CWB collapses, American and international conglomerates win. They get immediate access to prairie grains. They can and will strip us of any extra income that we might think we could make.
Americans do not want our grain to compete with theirs. That is why they have tried to close down the CWB in the past. …
The railway companies will be jumping with joy. They will no longer have to deal with a cap. They will charge us any freight charges they please, as we will no longer have a major shipper/exporter to guarantee grain car shipments or monitor freight charges.
The Prairies could never again set up a pooling system such as the CWB, as the free trade act will have taken that away from us.
So, if you want to vote in favour of taking away barley grains from the CWB, just remember who destroyed your family farm.
You did.
– Jan Eliason
Outlook, Sask.
