Allen Oberg, a farmer and director of the Canadian Wheat Board, says the government is being undemocratic in its attempts to break the board’s monopoly on grain sales

The Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) helps Lynn Jacobson get a good price for his grain, and he’d like to keep it that way. “Most of us feel the CWB is farmer-owned and farmer-controlled. It’s our only entry into the market and our chance to have some say in the marketing,” he says. “It spreads the profits more fairly among farmers.” Jacobson fears that if Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is successful in dismantling the board, the price he receives for his grain might fall. Last month, the government tried to remove barley from the board’s jurisdiction, a move that was struck down by Federal Court in Calgary.
    The CWB is a government body run by a board of directors mostly elected by farmers. The CWB is currently the only organization allowed to sell western Canadian wheat and barley, which allows it to fix prices. The Harper government believes farmers should be able to opt out of the CWB and sell their grain to private companies, and his government has spent the past year trying to make that happen.
    “The government is saying that it’s better for farmers to have the power to make that decision,” says Paul Martin, a senior policy director with the federal Ministry of Agriculture. “Ultimately, it’s the people in the business who are best placed to make that decision.”
    The government plans to keep the CWB intact, but give farmers the choice to sell outside the board. His critics argue that removing the CWB’s monopoly would break the board’s power to keep prices high.
    “There’s a lot more losers than winners in an open market,” says Jacobson, who has worked on his family farm northeast of Lethbridge for 35 years. “You just can’t compete with the big grain companies.”
    Ken Larsen, who farms just west of Sylvan Lake, says that some farmers believe they can get a better price for their grain by selling outside of the CWB, but if they start doing that, prices will fall across the board.
    “It’s a very bad thing from the perspective of individual farmers who want to get the best value for their grain,” he says. “The board returns more money to the farm gate than a private system can.”
    Larsen and Jacobson are both disturbed by the government’s attempts to dismantle the CWB. Last year, then-agriculture minister Chuck Strahl took advantage of the fact that the federal government has the power to appoint five of the board’s 15 directors, and replaced pro-CWB directors with some who favoured an open market. Next, he asked that CWB president Adrian Measner, also a government appointee, support an open market. When Measner said that he supported maintaining the CWB’s monopoly, the government fired him.
    “If that had happened in the real world, there would’ve been a wrongful dismissal suit,” says Allen Oberg, an elected CWB director from Alberta. “(Measner) was carrying out the board’s wishes.” Oberg, a farmer in favour of the board’s monopoly, argues that the federal government shouldn’t be allowed to make the changes on its own.
    “If farmers don’t want a wheat board, they don’t have to have one, but farmers have to make that decision,” he says. “This whole thing that Harper’s doing is an infringement on democracy.”
    In order to remove a grain from the board’s control, the government has to poll farmers and take the changes to parliament. Earlier this summer, Harper and Strahl tried to remove barley from the board. They polled farmers but, rather than go through parliament, tried to change the law through a cabinet decree. A judge ruled that the move was illegal, meaning barley is still under the board’s control.
    The poll of farmers resulted in a split decision between those wanting the board abolished, those wanting the board to stay and those wanting a hybrid system – leaving the board intact while allowing them to opt out of it – with most voting for the hybrid. Oberg thinks that a hybrid system wouldn’t work, and that the government shouldn’t have put that option onto the ballot. “To suggest to farmers that they can have the best of both worlds is unfair,” he says.
    In the middle of elections to chose board members last year, the government slashed the number of people eligible to vote. Oberg says that move resulted in several older, small farms being disenfranchised, with almost 40 per cent of his constituency losing the right to vote.
    Kevin Bender, a farmer and director of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers’ Association, says the poll showed that most farmers favour an open market. He thinks they should have the right to choose who they sell their grain to. He doesn’t believe the wheat board should be abolished, arguing that if the wheat board can give them a good price, they shouldn’t be worried about competition.
    “If they’re going to guarantee us a good price, why would we go anywhere else?’ he says. “I don’t think I’m getting the best price for my grain.” He says the wheat board has been secretive about the price it’s getting for grain. He says that with modern technology such as the Internet, it would be easier for farmers to market their own grain.
    Bob Roehle, who spent 30 years as an economist and market analyst for the wheat board, disagrees. He says individual farmers don’t stand a chance of getting a better price for their grain in the competitive international market, and they need the wheat board to get the best money possible.
    “This is economics 101. If (the CWB is) the only one marketing a quality Canadian product in an international market, it has some power,” he says. “From a farmer’s perspective, the wheat board is worth money.”