babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Federal Court rules Wheat Board can keep barley monopoly
July 31, 2007 - 6:54pm
Source.
Looks good on the Conservatives
More details - including a link to the Federal Court judgement - are available here:
CWB vs. Harper Cons
Really, why would the CWB allow farmers the option to market their own products? A silly idea: farmers aren't smart or educated enough to make their own economic decisions. Besides, the board's trade with Algeria might get hurt and the farmers might get current market pricing. Can't have that. Imagine what farmers would do with independence. They might even sell to the USA.
By golly - why stop at farmers? What about workers?
Who needs trade unions?
Imagine the notion individual workers aren't smart and educated enough to negotiate their own terms and conditions of employment with multinational corporations... or governments...
Unions are obviously just an insult to the intelligence of employees.
Too bad barley farmers don't appreciate their own business acumen. Last time they had a fair vote (1997), they voted 63% against making their own economic decisions.
It took a rigged vote, with no voters' list, numbered ballots (!), exclusion of 16,000 voters because they hadn't sold to the CWB in two years, firing the head of the Wheat Board, muzzling the free speech of the elected directors, a phoney "question", and a self-serving interpretation of the vote results, to come up with Mr. Strahl's draconian action - which was then ruled illegal by the courts.
It doesn't take brains or education for an individual farmer to market her own barley. It takes wealth. In my book, the interests of the non-wealthy trump those of the wealthy every day of the week. Sorry to show my bias here.
[ 02 August 2007: Message edited by: unionist ]
I thought the last time the farmers had a choice by vote they took oats out of the CWB...
Sure, there are a couple of farms who don't like it, but the majority does. So too bad.
Anyway, what do the farmers think is going to happen? It's not like suddenly their prices are going to go way up (they're already on their way up due to biofuels) and have access to more markets.
All that's going ot happen is a number of 'competing' corporate run wheat organizations are going to jump into the game and shift the profit away from the wheat board and over to the corporations.
I appreciate that in the last few years wheat and barley prices have been good and some farmers want to bust the marketing board. They have before under similar circumstances. But then, surprise, surprise, prices went soft and farmers whined to governments to help and the wheat board was re-established.
I think if farmers want to kill the wheat board for short term greed they should be allowed to. But I think they should also be informed, very clearly, that when prices again go soft, they are not to return to government and the taxpayer for a bailout. If they want to play by free market rules, then play by free market rules with the full understanding that the free market produces more losers than winners in the long term. Make it plain: Don't come back hat in hand!
That should equally apply to all farmers including tobacco farmers who made investments when the writing was on the wall.
Farmers always talk the talk about free markets and capitalism and many hate tax dollars supporting the poor and working poor, but they become dyed in the wool pink proponents of the welfare state when it is their own incomes and property that are at stake.
How much are farmers currently demanding from all levels of government? In the billions. BILLIONS!
Why? As proponents of free market economies they should suck it up and sell to mega-corps or land speculators. That is what free market capitalism is all about. So what is their problem?
How much does it cost to market grains?
I put my soybeans into storage, a co-op storage. Then I pick up the phone and call and sell them whenever I want, usually after watching the market, or reading, studying trends. Then the cheque is either mailed to me or I can go and get it. It's not that difficult, and I have no one to blame or congratulate but myself.
I guess the cost difference in the marketing, alluded to by Unionist must be in long distance charges, mail service, and gas consumption vs having a board do that work for me.
I find it odd that in most other aspects of our lives we're all fired up to keep our options open, freedom of choice, or we fight to maintain or expand these freedoms, but when we discuss an issue like the CWB, there's no continuity of thought.
If the farmers want to keep the board's rule, fine. They've voted on it and they'll fight to maintain their board. I have no issue with that.
However, in my mind, the difference between the board's monopoly on certain products, durum wheat, barley, is little different than Monsanto's ownership of a product like Round-Up Ready Soybeans. I can't grow those beans and keep seed back for the next planting, by law, enforced by our government. Similarly, if I lived in a province that is under the aegis of the CWB, I wouldn't be able to sell durum wheat without the Board. It amounts to the same problem in my eyes: a corporate entity controlling a natural resource. The monopoly isn't on marketing, it's on the product. Or am I mis-understanding this?
News to me.
Oats, which formed less than 1/2 of 1% of CWB business, were removed by another Conservative government in 1989. Never heard of any vote. There was no court challenge.
The emboldened government tried to remove barley in August 1993. Prairie Pool challenged it in court, and the move was reversed within a few days. The last vote I'm aware of was 1997, when 62.9% of voters favoured retention of the barley monopoly.
So in the end I will put my trust in other farmers, rather than an ideologically driven government. They fought to get the board in the first place and the majority of them are fighting to keep it.
It is a bit smarmy to complain about farmers being considered dumb to then do the exact same thing when looking at farmers, who farm in a completely different context, figure that their best interests lie in maintaining a single desk.
[ 02 August 2007: Message edited by: Life, the universe, everything ]
Yeah, I think you are.
I have no problem whatsoever with monopolies - that are owned by the producers. In fact, that's how I believe the entire society should be organized.
It's the huge corporations owned by dividend-collecting stock-speculating non-producing freeloaders that I have a problem with - whether they are monopolies or not. They produce nothing, and they reap everything.
I'm guilty of splitting hairs, to be sure, on CWB issues. There is a reason why it exists, and people I trust argue in its favour, and for its continued existence.
But it's been my experience with ag marketing boards, ones with power, that there is a clique of backroom brokering and behind the scenes deal making, cutting out the producers from vertical integrations, or ignoring concerns that come from the ground up. Just because the CWB is made up of farmers and purports to work in the best interest of its members does not put it above scrutiny, and shouldn't be used to put down legitimate concerns (of the roughly %30 of the voters) who dare to think differently.
Of course, all this goes on while Canada is attempting to open up markets worldwide while perserving it's supply managed sectors.
Is the shipping distance to Algeria less than it is to the US?
[ 02 August 2007: Message edited by: Farmpunk ]
Democracy actually wins for a change.
Except for central canadian farmers, who can market their grain to whomever they please.
Why isn't the NDP calling for a truly Canadian CWB?
Why, are you?
It just seems that having a federally collective marketing board would be preferable to a western marketing board.
A good start to the answer to your problem was already posted above.
You are right apples are not oranges.
What is the percentage of voting vs non-voting farmers? Do they all cast ballots, one hundred percent? Or is this a democratic exercise similar to our overall voting trends: less people voting, and the reps who get in are historically less than sensitive to the "real" issues than they should be? What is the farm size breakdown in the membership and how do smaller farmers vote vs the largers operations? Young vs old? I understand there is a north-south split.
Other ag sectors, in other provinces, have strong marketing boards with provisions for independent marketing. I believe that both BC and Alberta allow "small" farms to raise and sell in the range of 2000kgs of poultry products outside the respective associations. I can't find my Small Farmer magazine, but the head of the Alberta Poultry Producers said that these operations have minimal to no effect on the overall market. Thank goodness for the Ontario Poultry Producers, who just this year have allowed farmers to raise, and sell (!), 300 birds. That number was far below what the Ecological Farmers Of Ontario were asking for, and comes with strange provisios about how the birds can be marketed. (sidenote: Life, you noticed recent farm press about how the big poultry ops want the small growers closely monitored because we're more of a risk for avian influenza than the big barns? Because most small birds are raised more free ranging, access to outside, and therefore come into more potential contact with wild birds carrying strains of the virus. Had to laugh at the weirdness of that one: Keep the birds indoors for public safety!).
The CWB, even with a %30 loss of farmers (a pure approximation, working with the numbers in this thread) would still control the majority of the durum wheat and barley, and would likely maintain its customers in Algeria and China. But with less product on the market (most in the south of the CWB area would presumably ship to the US markets), less product availible, would that not force a higher price to be paid to the CWB? Or does the CWB have a vested interest in selling grain below current market costs, or at a regulated cost, to certain markets?
Anyone have a link that shows the farm size and\or production-percentage of pro vs no CWB members? A lot of what I posted above would depend on that ratio.
and some history by Measner ...
So, in reply to
... a better question would be, "Why is the Prime Minister so antagonistic to the Canadian Wheat Board?"
And Measner has provided an excellent answer.
[ 03 August 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
http://tinyurl.com/2g7cgh
I don't know much about the Wheat Board or what legitimate grievances some farmers might have about it. But that post by FM makes sense to me. I also know that Farmpunk is a reasonable person, and that he may have a counter-argument, and I'd love to hear it.
The NDP reaction:
Link.
http://tinyurl.com/2pkmv7