<b>Ottawa delivers freedom to farmers over protests of Wheat Board</b>
Lorne Gunter, National Post
Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011
Finally, Canada has a federal agriculture minister who understands why a government monopoly over prairie wheat and barley marketing is incompatible with democratic rights.
Monday, the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) released the results of a rigged plebiscite it held this summer among grain growers – a plebiscite designed to show how much farmers still love the board – and the response of Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz was spot on.
The Conservative government has announced it will move this fall to repeal the CWB’s monopoly over wheat and barley grown for human consumption in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and northeastern B.C. This prompted the board (which cannot imagine life without its monopoly power) to ask western wheat and barley growers whether they wanted to retain the monopoly or move to a fully open market. Among wheat growers, 62% voted for the monopoly. Among barley growers, just 51% did.
This prompted wheat board chairman, Allen Oberg to proclaim that the federal government is “out of touch with farmers.” He declared his group’s plebiscite is “the deepest expression of all of what farmers really want and the minister should listen.”
To which Mr. Ritz replied “No expensive survey can trump the individual right of farmers to market their own grain.”
To my recollection, no other federal politician has ever expressed so succinctly the issue at the core of the debate over the board: This is a free country. If farmers do not want to use the board to market the grain they grow on their own land, using seed, fertilizers and pesticides they paid for themselves, with equipment that belongs to them, then they shouldn’t have to, no matter what their neighbours want. There is no moral or ethical justification Ottawa can use to compel them to. The only authority to impose a grain monopoly is the brute force of law.
Gerry Ritz understands that, Allen Oberg clearly does not.
The most ironic argument wheat board supporters make for the perpetuation of the monopoly is that those who want marketing choice are just being selfish. Yet, in truth, the selfish ones are those who would force their fellow producers to adhere to the monopoly against their will.
Board supporters insist that only through collective marketing will all farmers receive the highest price for their grain. But this belief does not spring from concern for the income of market-friendly producers. Rather it comes from pro-monopoly farmers’ concern for their own incomes. They don’t truly care how much other farmers get for their crops, except to the extent that those other farmers’ incomes affect their own. So their belief in the superiority of “single-desk” marketing is nothing more than a mask for their selfish desire to maximize their own incomes.
What’s remarkable about the plebiscite’s outcome is that only 62% of wheat farmers voted to retain the board’s monopoly. A full 38% voted for an open grain market. (Among barley producers the split was 51/49.)
Never before have I seen more than 15% support for open markets.
The largest number of prairie wheat growers – about 45% — favour dual marketing. They want the choice to market through the board or on their own. The CWB doesn’t want the hassle of operating in a dual-marketing environment, so it didn’t offer producers that choice on the ballot, knowing full well that that would produce a pro-monopoly result.
But what the board hadn’t counted on was the resentment towards it, particularly among younger farmers. Few wheat farmers like the idea of having to market their wheat entirely on their own. In the board’s annual survey of producers this spring, just 13% favoured the open market; 40% backed the monopoly and 45% wanted dual marketing.
Yet when given the choice in the plebiscite between continued monopoly rigidity and the risk of the open market, nearly 40% of farmers chose greater risk over collectivism backed by government coercion. Forced to chose, the open market was the lesser of two evils for four in 10 farmers.
There were also questions about the legitimacy of the board’s voters’ list. Brian Otto, president of the Western Barley Growers Association (a pro market-choice organization) said he called over 1,100 producers on the list last fall and discovered “deceased producers, producers who had exited the industry, retired producers and so called interested parties, who were receiving a ballot.” Except for the deceased farmers, these groups tend to be pro-monopoly and still, with their inclusion, the board could get no more than 60% support.
Looked at that way, the plebiscite was surely a disappointment for the board, and in some regards a defeat. The board did everything it could to swamp the pro-market option. Nonetheless, nearly 40% of Prairie farmers would rather take their chances with market forces than continue to operate under the tyranny of the board.
The point remains, though, no matter whether 99.9% of farmers had voted for the monopoly, as Agriculture Minister Ritz said, there is no democratic authority that “can trump the individual right of farmers to market their own grain.”
Lorne Gunter, National Post
Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011
Finally, Canada has a federal agriculture minister who understands why a government monopoly over prairie wheat and barley marketing is incompatible with democratic rights.
Monday, the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) released the results of a rigged plebiscite it held this summer among grain growers – a plebiscite designed to show how much farmers still love the board – and the response of Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz was spot on.
The Conservative government has announced it will move this fall to repeal the CWB’s monopoly over wheat and barley grown for human consumption in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and northeastern B.C. This prompted the board (which cannot imagine life without its monopoly power) to ask western wheat and barley growers whether they wanted to retain the monopoly or move to a fully open market. Among wheat growers, 62% voted for the monopoly. Among barley growers, just 51% did.
This prompted wheat board chairman, Allen Oberg to proclaim that the federal government is “out of touch with farmers.” He declared his group’s plebiscite is “the deepest expression of all of what farmers really want and the minister should listen.”
To which Mr. Ritz replied “No expensive survey can trump the individual right of farmers to market their own grain.”
To my recollection, no other federal politician has ever expressed so succinctly the issue at the core of the debate over the board: This is a free country. If farmers do not want to use the board to market the grain they grow on their own land, using seed, fertilizers and pesticides they paid for themselves, with equipment that belongs to them, then they shouldn’t have to, no matter what their neighbours want. There is no moral or ethical justification Ottawa can use to compel them to. The only authority to impose a grain monopoly is the brute force of law.
Gerry Ritz understands that, Allen Oberg clearly does not.
The most ironic argument wheat board supporters make for the perpetuation of the monopoly is that those who want marketing choice are just being selfish. Yet, in truth, the selfish ones are those who would force their fellow producers to adhere to the monopoly against their will.
Board supporters insist that only through collective marketing will all farmers receive the highest price for their grain. But this belief does not spring from concern for the income of market-friendly producers. Rather it comes from pro-monopoly farmers’ concern for their own incomes. They don’t truly care how much other farmers get for their crops, except to the extent that those other farmers’ incomes affect their own. So their belief in the superiority of “single-desk” marketing is nothing more than a mask for their selfish desire to maximize their own incomes.
What’s remarkable about the plebiscite’s outcome is that only 62% of wheat farmers voted to retain the board’s monopoly. A full 38% voted for an open grain market. (Among barley producers the split was 51/49.)
Never before have I seen more than 15% support for open markets.
The largest number of prairie wheat growers – about 45% — favour dual marketing. They want the choice to market through the board or on their own. The CWB doesn’t want the hassle of operating in a dual-marketing environment, so it didn’t offer producers that choice on the ballot, knowing full well that that would produce a pro-monopoly result.
But what the board hadn’t counted on was the resentment towards it, particularly among younger farmers. Few wheat farmers like the idea of having to market their wheat entirely on their own. In the board’s annual survey of producers this spring, just 13% favoured the open market; 40% backed the monopoly and 45% wanted dual marketing.
Yet when given the choice in the plebiscite between continued monopoly rigidity and the risk of the open market, nearly 40% of farmers chose greater risk over collectivism backed by government coercion. Forced to chose, the open market was the lesser of two evils for four in 10 farmers.
There were also questions about the legitimacy of the board’s voters’ list. Brian Otto, president of the Western Barley Growers Association (a pro market-choice organization) said he called over 1,100 producers on the list last fall and discovered “deceased producers, producers who had exited the industry, retired producers and so called interested parties, who were receiving a ballot.” Except for the deceased farmers, these groups tend to be pro-monopoly and still, with their inclusion, the board could get no more than 60% support.
Looked at that way, the plebiscite was surely a disappointment for the board, and in some regards a defeat. The board did everything it could to swamp the pro-market option. Nonetheless, nearly 40% of Prairie farmers would rather take their chances with market forces than continue to operate under the tyranny of the board.
The point remains, though, no matter whether 99.9% of farmers had voted for the monopoly, as Agriculture Minister Ritz said, there is no democratic authority that “can trump the individual right of farmers to market their own grain.”
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