Canada: CWB can lose marketing monopoly if the Conservative Party wins federal election

The Canadian Wheat Board stands to lose its marketing monopoly if the Conservative Party wins the federal election, one Conservative legislator said on November 30 according to Reuters .

"We believe the Canadian Wheat Board should be voluntary," said David Anderson, a Saskatchewan member of Parliament.

The CWB markets western Canadian grain from a single desk, something Anderson said about half the wheat producers in the Prairies do not want. If the CWB's single-desk marketing were to be eliminated, western wheat and barley producers would have a choice and the opportunity to benefit from the value-added sector, he said.

CWB President Adrian Measner stated the single-desk marketing structure is necessary.

"The single desk allows us to compete very effectively in an international marketplace that's dominated by a handful of large companies, and so that gives us the power to compete there and it also gives us the power to get premiums from a number of customers and bring those premiums back to farmers," Measner told Reuters on the sidelines of the Canada Grains Council annual meeting in Ottawa on Wednesday.

"So, if you change that, if you have a dual market or an open market -- they end up being the same thing -- we will be put in a situation where we're trying to still market grain but competing against very large companies ... and we would be at a significant disadvantage and I think the organization would disappear very quickly."

The CWB's monopoly was also been targeted by the European Union and the United States, and is entering a critical time with WTO negotiations. The CWB expects the December 13-18 ministerial meeting in Hong Kong will set the tone for a draft deal necessary to resume trade talks.The liberal CWB minister Reg Alcock said it is premature to talk about making changes to the marketing structure while WTO negotiations are taking place.

"Our position is we should let those negotiations go ahead and get a sense of what the international environment is before we draw any conclusions," Alcock said.Alcock pointed out the CWB is controlled by farmers who elect its directors, and that ultimately these are the people who should make the decision as it is their commodity they're selling.

The CWB, which traces its history back to World War One, is the largest wheat and barley marketer in the world, the board said.The Conservatives currently hold 46 of 56 seats in the Prairie grain belt.

Anderson would not state the procedure his party would take with regards to CWB changes, until after the January 23 election. The Conservatives would also evaluate the CWB's farmer-election process, something that has caused producers concern, Anderson stated.

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