Robert Tappauf’s family has farmed the lands in around St. Albert for decades, selling grain to the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) for many of them.
He’s one of many local famers that want the board gone.
“They’re not doing a good job marketing our board grains,” he says, referring to grains western farmers are obliged to sell through the board. “The U.S. guys, they don’t have a board, and they make more money.”
Farmers want more options when it comes to marketing their grain, Tappauf says. His question for Westlock-St. Paul candidates: “What’s your policy on the Canadian Wheat Board?”
Western farmers have consistently elected pro-single-desk directors to the CWB, NDP candidate Lyndsey Henderson says in an email response, and her party supports their decision. “The Harper Tories have consistently tried to meddle in the affairs of the board and reverse the decision farmers have tried to make for themselves.”
The NDP would support amendments to the CWB Act that would put farmers firmly in control of the agency, Henderson says. She did not specify the nature of these amendments, however, and they are not outlined in her party’s platform document.
Australians are losing about $2 billion a year due to the loss of their single-desk market, she says. “Stripping the single desk did not create a dual market. It simply caused the board to disappear and be swallowed up by the major grain companies who are making significant profits at the farmers’ expense.”
The Greens generally support the board’s marketing efforts, says party candidate Lisa Grant in an email, but she personally wasn’t convinced the board jived with her party’s ideals of supporting small farms and local marketing. While the Greens support supply management systems, they also want those systems to let small farms sell outside the system to local markets.
Single-desk marketing should either be compulsory everywhere or voluntary everywhere, Grant says, “no double standards.”
“I would support the CWB with some modifications after getting input from the people it applies to.”
A 2008 report by Informa Economics suggests Western Canadian farmers could make $450 million to $628 million more a year through selling outside of the CWB, says Conservative candidate Brian Storseth. (CWB spokespeople called that study “badly flawed.”)
“My position on the wheat board has been clear for the last five years,” Storseth says. “I believe we need to give farmers a marketing option.”
It’s unfair to let farmers in Eastern Canada opt out of the Ontario Wheat Board while forcing westerners to take part in the CWB, he says. “Our farmers should have the same options as every other farmer across the country.” But there are plenty of farmers who like the board, he adds, so we don’t want to get rid of it entirely.
Storseth seconded a private member’s bill last session that, had it passed, would have let farmers opt out of the CWB. It died on the order paper when the election started. “This is farmers’ property, and it should be a farmer’s choice as to where he wants to sell his property.”
If the Conservatives were serious about reform, says Liberal candidate Rob Fox, they would have tabled that bill as a government bill. “What the Conservatives are trying to do is legislate the board away.”
Recent board elections show clear support for the single-desk system, Fox says, and farmers control the board. “The board is for them, by them.” Any changes to the marketing system should come through the board, not the government. “If farmers want to do that, so be it.”
Said vote should have a clear question on it, he added, unlike the 2007 Conservative plebiscite on barley marketing, which was criticized for its biased question. About 63 per cent of Albertans supported some sort of open-desk system in that vote.
