Wheat Board Election Advertising Limits

Horsefeathers. Why don't you take your ideological blinders off.

It has been shown time and again that the Conservatives will stoop to previously unheard of low to help out their friends in big business. Meanwhile independent studies keep showing the CWB has a net positive return for farmers.

I dunno. The last poll (vote?) taken on the issue - from the people most affected, the farmers - said that one third were in favour of no board, one third wanted some form of marketing choice with a board still in place, and one third wanted status quo.

I think it might be time for everyone to take off the blinders and dicuss various marketing options.

That the wheat board is a political issue that both left and right use as a plaything isn't serving the farmers' best interests. I assume that there are some farmers directly affected by the wheat board who have stopped paying attention because the issue has been taken over by the usual political bullshit.

However, I will bow to BA's much greater knowlege of the subject. My experience with boards and supply management in Ontario hasn't been the best.

And goes to show that the concerns of all producers in question are not being acknowleged due to knee jerk non-farming community reactionaries with their own political axes to grind. For those folks, the wheat board is their cause celeb and never mind what the farmers have to say.

The lack of marketing options for farmers is not in any way progressive. And a middle road of supply management and marketing options are availible in many other ag products. Why is the wheat board so untouchable?

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Originally posted by Farmpunk:
[b] I assume that there are some farmers directly affected by the wheat board who have stopped paying attention because the issue has been taken over by the usual political bullshit.
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Farmers are as political as anyone else. There are heated debates going on in cafes and church basements all over rural Saskatchewan. They have not stopped paying attention!

Poulty quota in Ontario. Currently under review by the Poultry producers of Ontario.

Currently a farmer without quota can raise and sell 300 birds, under a set of asinine regulations. The Poultry board is set to decide whether this practice can be continued. Three years ago groups like the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario fought for these small flock rights - the EFAO wanted closer to a thousand birds allowed. The same Poultry producers are the ones who suggest free range and more naturally raised birds are more dangerous to public safety. Birds should be raised in barns, should be their logo. Operating outside the farm marketing system in Ontario's supply managed sectors bring with it stiff penalties and maybe a visit by a food safety SWAT team.

BC and Alberta, I believe, have poultry marketing systems that also allow for fairly sizeable operations outside the regulated group. 2000 kgs\year\producer, I think, for both.

So we should allow small producers (up to, say, 300 bushels of grain) to market outside of the Marketing Board?

I can't see the reasoning, but if that's the happy compromise, okay.

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Originally posted by Farmpunk:
[b]LTJ, to address your other point. I think the problem is that some farmers believe the Board is unable to market the wheat quickly enough to respond to a lightening fast market. Lack of markets isn't a problem, though I do believe the Board has it's favoured customers.[/b]

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Actually farmpunk there are a large number of self-marketing tools under the CWB that farmers can access if they want. The real opposition to the CWB is entirely ideological. You can literally hear these guys talk about how Canada is a communist country and the like. My first trip out west I rented a car and traveled around parts of Saskatchewan and stopped off in places farmers gather just to get the real story. I was shocked to here some of the bizarre rhetoric out of some of these guys mouths.
When it comes down to it the CWB affects my farm not one whit. But I have met more than enough farmers who it does directly to believe I have a responsibility to bring the dirty tricks campaign of the current government to light as much as I can.

No,no farmpunk you raise legitimate concerns. But it is important to remember that there is a lot of big interests, who are no friends of farmers, waiting to rip the CWB apart and plunder farmers even more.

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Originally posted by Farmpunk:
[b]I'm familiar with the divide and conquer strategies. Unfortunately, from my board\supply managed experience, sometimes the status quo works to preserve itself at the expense of small farmers.

I suppose that the fact that the wheat board is even a debatable issue is a good thing, because so much of agriculture is so far below the public's radar that most issues never even make it to the public's attention.[/b]

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Have we ever talked about my experience with chicken quota - we should.

One of the things western farmers have told me, and these are small family farms, is that the CWB is what keeps them in business. Although there small family farms would be a substantial sized farm here in Ontario. Friends out west like to call our 100 acre home farm a garden
[img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

Are any of you in Ontario forced to deal the majority or all of your product through the CWB? If you do not then I suspect that you are the ones who should take off your ideological blinders.

[ 30 August 2008: Message edited by: Kdrunkin1 ]

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Originally posted by Bookish Agrarian:
[b]I have a number of family farming in Manitoba and know a lot of farmers in the west that I am in regular contact with. Are you pretending that all, or even most western grain farmers want to see the end of the CWB. If you are then you are full of crap, full enough in fact I can smell it all the way from here.

Why don't you enlighten us on what exactly you can't do through the Wheat Board right now. Remember I am up on all the CWB programming so I will be able to smell bs from here too.[/b]

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Farmers can't start farmer owned and supplied mills without having to buy the wheat through the board.
Farmers can't sell their grain at any time they want because the board has to open contracts before the farmers can sell.
The farmers can't sell their own grain in the USA if they want to. The market price in the US is generally way higher than here.
Farmers have to wait almost a year to get their final payment after possibly getting interim payments.

Now lets hear your rebuttal.

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Originally posted by Brian White:
[b]I just got a conservative mailout attacking the wheat board. "the con government is acting to bring market freedom to canadas western barley produces. When we provide access to an open market, producers and consumers alike will be winners"
And thats horseshit. What actually happens in an open market is that farmers get shitty prices when they have a good harvest. (because they cannot store it very long they have to sell in the glut) (and the merchants can easily cartel and wait them out) and get decent prices only when there is almost nothing to harvest.
The price to consumers is kept floating by the middle men who buy from the farmers.
I saw my da almost have a mental breakdown when the "holy free market" decided his prices.
Another really bad thing about the free market is that farmers have to bet on which crops to sow 6 or 8 months in advance of harvest.
This often is like all the passengers in a plane running to the back or front.
It just aint safe to have food production decided by speculation on prices 8 months later.
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You good sir are sorrily informed on your thinking. Why are you concerned with food prices but not fair market value for a farmers goods? Why should a board of directors with little or no farming background decide the price western Canadian grain farmers get for their product. Why is there not a lobby to get Ontario farmers and east into the CWB as it is the CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD after all.

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Originally posted by Kdrunkin1:
[b]

You good sir are sorrily informed on your thinking. Why are you concerned with food prices but not fair market value for a farmers goods? Why should a board of directors with little or no farming background decide the price western Canadian grain farmers get for their product. Why is there not a lobby to get Ontario farmers and east into the CWB as it is the CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD after all.[/b]

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This is straight out bullshit. The CWB board is made up of farmers and government appointments. Until the Conservatives started manipulating the process government appointees were placed on the Board for their expertise and knowledge. Now the main criteria is that they support destroying the Board, including board farmer candidates that were blown out in their regions by pro-single desk candidates.

This thread is about the Conservative government now allowing third parties - read corporate interests- to bankroll anti-wheat board farmer candidates who have been unable to win in straight-forward, fair and open elections of their peers. Unfortunetly there are always a small few that are willing to sell out the neighbours for a few shekels of silver

If you are such a supporter of freedom how could you be in favour of third party manipulation
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Ontario has its own Wheat Board already. It is called, surprisingly, the Ontario Wheat Board. The fact you seem to be so woefully unaware of the situation suggests to me that you do not really farm, either that or you are so ideologically seduced you have no ability to recognize reality from right wing fantasy.

Again, how is your farm operation, assuming you have one, specifically negatively effected by the CWB. Facts, not just more bs rhetoric.

[ 02 September 2008: Message edited by: Bookish Agrarian ]