The volume has risen in a long-polarizing debate in Prairie agriculture as the Canadian Wheat Board dials up its campaign in support of a single-desk marketing system about to be legislated out of existence.
The CWB this week has launched a new multi-platform ad campaign, "Stop the Steamroller," on the heels of an application in Federal Court to halt the federal government’s legislative package for Prairie wheat and barley marketing reform, expected to pass sometime next month.
In response, the pro-deregulation Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association and three of its farmer members on Thursday filed in Federal Court for a judicial review of the CWB’s actions, and whether those actions violate standing government orders for the CWB not to expend funds, directly or indirectly, advocating for the retention of its monopoly.
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The Wheat Growers’ action is meant "to ensure farmers’ money is not misspent," association chairman Gerrid Gust said Thursday. "We also want to ensure the CWB is not allowed to stand in the way of our grain marketing freedom."
Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, meanwhile, was on the road this week in Alix, Alta., where U.S. maltster Rahr Malting announced a major expansion to the barley storage facilities connected to its malthouse there.
"As demonstrated by Rahr Malting’s expansion plans, marketing freedom will unlock new value-added investment, creating jobs and more economic growth in Western Canada," Ritz said in a release.
The CWB this week also marked the end of another shipping season for the Hudson Bay port of Churchill, Man., of which the board has long been the primary client, by warning that the economic equation changes for the port if the CWB winds down and grain companies start exporting Prairie wheat.
"Their business models are less focused on transportation costs — which they can simply pass on to farmers — and more focused on maximizing grain flow through their own port facilities," CWB chair Allen Oberg said Wednesday. "It is difficult to imagine why they’d choose to use Churchill."
Another pro-CWB group, the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance, went on the record Monday as warning the end of the CWB would mean the "end of local food" as "private corporations will then control our basic food stocks and will simply buy the cheapest grain they can from any source."
The National Farmers Union, meanwhile, warned Monday that the CWB’s loss would decimate a "critical piece of grain marketing infrastructure in Canada," which in the longer term "will be particularly detrimental for young farmers who, being less established, will have fewer resources to weather these kinds of storms."
Grainews editor Lyndsey Smith sat down Thursday with RealAgriculture.com’s Shaun Haney and Andrew Campbell of Fresh Air Media to discuss the latest warnings and assess the likelihood of any real threat to Canada’s other major system of managed marketing: its supply-managed dairy, poultry and egg sectors.
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