Western Canada’s biggest grain elevator companies have weighed in on the Canadian Wheat Board’s proposed barley pricing option by calling for “the complete deregulation of barley as soon as possible.”
The Western Grain Elevator Association, which as recently as August 2006 said it had “chosen to stay out of the debate concerning the future of the Canadian Wheat Board,” on Thursday stated that coming to a resolution with the CWB on barley contract terms “is not achievable.”
The association, whose seven grain-handling members include Viterra, Cargill and JRI/Pioneer Grain, said in a release that its members “have been trying to negotiate malt barley contracts with the (CWB) over previous months, but the terms offered by the CWB are unacceptable.”
Read Also
Field-by-field mapping could improve yield, productivity predictions
University of Saskatchewan researchers are using field border mapping to collect data on field variability, including problematic weeds, and to predict things like yields.
The terms proposed for a cash-price contract option “do not allow WGEA member companies to provide full price transparency to their farmer customers, nor do the terms provide farmers and end use customers with the right market signals,” said association executive director Wade Sobkowich.
“In addition, the inherent restrictions within the contracts do not allow grain companies to operate in a commercially reasonable manner.”
The elevator companies’ statement follows similar declarations by the Malting Industry Association of Canada, representing Canada’s four biggest maltsters, and by federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz who called it a “half measure” that tries to “mimic the market through including some price signals and an element of direct negotiation between producers and the malting industry.”
The WGEA added that it saw no dispute resolution process in the contract terms, thereby placing the industry in an “untenable position,” Sobkowich said in the release.
“Given that the CWB is offering terms under a ‘half-way’ system that are unacceptable, the WGEA has no choice but to call for legislation to implement market choice for barley farmers as soon as possible and no later than Aug. 1, 2008.”
Details of the CWB’s cash-price option haven’t yet been made widely available, but were outlined in a brief podcast for CWB permit book holders on Dec. 24. The details were due to be released later this month.
“Unusable”
The Western Barley Growers Association, a growers’ group known for its opposition to the CWB’s single marketing desk for barley, also weighed in Thursday calling the cash-price option “completely unusable by producers and not acceptable by our grain trade or our domestic maltsters,” referring to the WGEA and MIAC statements.
The group repeated its own call for barley deregulation on or before Aug. 1 this year, noting that Prairie farmers are already in the midst of planning their spring seeding intentions.
“I need to know now that come Aug. 1, 2008 that I can freely market my barley,” WBGA president Jeff Nielsen of Olds, Alta. said in the group’s press release Thursday.
