Dakota Growers Pasta Co. struck a tentative deal last week with a group of farmers in southeastern Saskatchewan to ensure a better durum supply for its operation. We wish them and their Canadian partners success.
But Dakota Growers has also offered support for a trade action accusing the Canadian Wheat Board of being an unfair trader – a trade action that could lead to restrictions on Canadian durum exports to the United States.
Since we would not want to pour cold water on any deal that offers new markets to Canadian durum growers, we won’t dwell on the delicious irony of the situation.
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We won’t mention that the case offers a living color example of the very arguments the CWB has used in its own defence – that it is only supplying what American farmers cannot, high quality durum.
The complaint contends the CWB is undercutting American durum prices and stealing markets from American farmers. But by working to sign a memorandum of understanding with farmers involved in Prairie Pasta, the Saskatchewan group, Dakota Growers has demonstrated the truth behind the wheat board’s defence claims. If Dakota Growers could have found enough suitable durum in the U.S., it wouldn’t have seen a need to seek out Canadian supplies.
The view from up north suggests this proves once again that Americans see the North American Free Trade Agreement and other international trade deals as a collection of wavy lines on a television set to be bent, straightened or fine-tuned in whatever fashion brings out the brightest picture for the American side.
The deal with Prairie Pasta would enable Canadian farmers to buy into Dakota Growers, which operates as a new generation co-op. That would then enable Canadian farmers to
deliver their durum to the Carrington, N.D.-based company.
We welcome the opportunities Dakota Growers is offering Canadian farmers, but surely even officials there must see the contradiction in their actions.
Yet, Dakota Growers chair Jack Dalrymple has publicly said he doesn’t see where one action played against the other. Maybe if the deal goes through, as we hope, and Dakota Growers becomes one of the wheat board’s major customers, the irony will sink in.
No doubt, Dakota Growers and Prairie Pasta would prefer if there was no CWB, but Prairie Pasta officials talked optimistically last week that they could reach some agreement with the CWB on streamlining the buy-back system.
We hope Praire Pasta is able to work a deal with the CWB, but in the end the wheat board monopoly must be protected and the CWB must continue to serve as the only exporter of western grown wheat and barley for the long-term benefit of farmers.
