Keith Dryden is the former Editor of the Western Producer.
There’s a cold east wind blowing this morning, a complete reversal of our prevailing winds that come from the west. Our political winds have switched as well and the result has been a colder, more self-seeking society.
Back in the 1920s there was a massive movement centered on the Prairies that focused on the need for co-operation, for pooling, for people helping people to improve the status of the whole society.
The theory was that where all competent farmers are given an equal opportunity to earn an adequate income, the whole economy benefits because everyone can contribute through paying taxes and providing support for the community.
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The roots of this movement came from a homesteading society where neighbor helping neighbor was a matter of sheer survival.
Now in the 1990s we are told this theory is socialistic and therefore bad. It infringes on the right of the individual to use his God-given talents to maximize his profit. A person who stands on his own two feet and creates new opportunities through innovative approaches is an image of nobility. He needs the prospect of making it big to give him incentive. He needs to be free to do his own marketing.
Instead of banding together we should all hone our individual enterprise and compete with one another. This is what we are told.
Since all can’t win the prize and since sometimes drought and grasshoppers can wipe out a year’s work, perhaps we should have crop insurance.
But we shouldn’t condone those who ride on the shirt-tails of the successful, should we? Perhaps we should make it a rule that only those who can prove they need the crop insurance cheques should be allowed to cash them.
Here in Canada we organized a system of grain production and marketing that was second to none in the world.
We developed our own varieties of crops. We developed a system of inspection so respected that buyers know exactly what they are getting when we say No. 1 CWRS.
We developed a central board system of marketing with trained staff around the world selling grain into 70 countries in any one year. That board can tell you in an instant whether it is raining in Lvov or the grasshoppers are bad in Patagonia, bits of information that are vital in assessing prospects for selling wheat.
The Canadian Wheat Board is financed by Canadian farmers and its one objective is to sell wheat to the best advantage of those farmers, all of them.
The advantage the board has is that it can access markets for all of our wheat and provide buyers with the types of grain they need.
Despite its successes, certain farmers see spot opportunities to make a few extra dollars by going around the system. The trouble with tying yourself to spot opportunities is that they come and they go and when they’re gone you still need a place to sell your grain.
In recent years we have been whittling down the board’s scope and powers so that farmers can pursue their fixations on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
We find ourselves providing adequate support for grain brokers and other middlemen who claim they can obtain premium prices if the breeze is favorable. The board’s monopoly on oats and barley was removed because some farmers were bootlegging feed grains across provincial borders to feedlots and other buyers.
Creation of the off-board market created jobs, jobs, jobs at the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange. It didn’t help the wheat board in organizing national and international feed grain sales.
Those in the vanguard seeking change claimed farmers depended too much on the board to handle their marketing and consequently were missing opportunities to increase their returns.
When you look at the ebb and flow of rye, durum, flax, canola, winter wheat, lentil, mustard, field pea and faba bean production, it is plain that it wasn’t only those who regard themselves as the enterprising few who adjusted their crop mix.
It was also claimed that the protection afforded by the board led farmers to produce wheat when the world was awash with wheat.
Farmers know full well if they produce wheat beyond the board’s capacity to sell they’ll be faced with buying bins and storing their surplus production.
Knowledgeable farmers went to wheat board country meetings and heard the board’s estimate of market needs. Of course they could have obtained advice from commercial sources and marched to the agendas attached thereto.
Following political pressure a few years ago, we decided to change the board’s mandate so that farmers with high-protein wheat could be paid a premium.
It doesn’t matter that protein content is largely a matter of having the good fortune to be in the right soil zone at the right time, this change had to be made. It was in the interests of maximizing returns for individuals, rather than sharing returns so all farmers would benefit.
Under our charter of rights and freedoms, doesn’t it say somewhere that it is the inalienable right of some of us to become millionaires while the rest of us take a lesser and lesser share of the returns?
Now some of us would like the wheat board to get out of the way so we can pump wheat and durum into the United States until it squeaks for mercy.
They have this nice premium on the U.S. dollar and the American farmers have a support system that keeps wheat prices at an attractive level for Canadian producers. We have this free trade agreement, don’t we? It is our duty to take advantage of the situation.
If the American wheat producers demand government action to stop Canadian farmers from exercising their freedom to freely compete, we should take action under NAFTA, shouldn’t we?
Then when we are faced with Argentina and Australia wanting to sell wheat into Canada at prices below our costs we will be consistent and welcome the competition, won’t we?
Yes, the winds of change are blowing. There’s a Biblical saying that he who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind. There seems to be no shortage of air seeders at work this winter.
