For your reading pleasure, there are two oped pieces in today's Winnipeg Free Press. (here and here) One promotes market choice, the other promotes the single-desk.
One line in the first piece caught my eye. It serves as a lense through which both articles and the entire debate can be viewed: "Any and all changes in Canadian agriculture -- in particular the CWB -- involve politics and emotion."
Since so many of the arguments in the debate, including many of my own, appeal to emotion, I think it important to look at the emotional tone in each article. Jeff Nielsen talks about opportunity and cooperation; optimist that he is, he talks about his excitement at being given the chance to market his own barley. Allan Dawson talks about how proponents of market choice are trying the mislead farmers; he tries to inspire fear at the thought of a competitive market.
In a debate, both sides use disparagement. The CWB debate is no exception. But I have yet to hear an optimistic version of the future that includes a single-desk for the CWB. It is awfully tough to get excited at the prospect of surrendering the marketing of my grain in perpetuity to the single desk.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I could bore you to death with examples of how the CWB has not marketed our grain 'to maximize returns to the producer'.
Sheila Fraser, when she did a very limited audit on the CWB called the CWB a 'social institution', because it is not operated on a proper business model and has never had maximizing returns to the producer as its number one priority.
The number one mandate of the CWB is that it is to be run to the 'best advantage of all Canadians', and if that means that the incomes of the 'designated area' farmers have to be sacrificed to the greater good of all Canadians, then so be it.
The 1970s Liberals were the ones who really ran out of control with the CWB and screwed western farmers big time.
The lesson was that you don't throw wheat at the PM in Regina.
I'm sure even some of the CWB supporters are ashamed of how blatantly Liberal the CWB has been in this discussion on the future of the CWB.
At a grain trade meeting a few years ago, Ken Ritter tried to enlist the Australian Wheat Board to join in his fight against the US. He warned the Aussy that the US might go after the AWB some day like it has the CWB.
The Aussy replied that he did not fear the US because his organization sold their grain to maximize the returns to the producers as any business selling a product would. He pointed out the loosely run CWB does not do that.
In fact, that is the problem of the CWB. It pretends to serve one master, ie the farmers in the desiganted area, but in fact the CWB has been interferred with and over-ruled by the federal cabinet so many times in its operations that it winds up not doing a good job in any area for farmers.
And the CWB has pissed some in the international grain off with their tactics of with holding grain from the world market at crucial times when it was badly needed by some hungry nations.
And then the CWB marketing geniuses sold it much too late to earn any premium on the price.
I will predict that when the CWB is out of the picture as a major player after a few years, even most of its supporters will wonder to themselves - why in the hell didn't we do this a long time ago.
The reason I say that, is because of the response to the new flexible pricing options being announced almost daily to make up for lost time. This has created a renewed in the grain markets by farmers. And a lot of producers have found out they like the idea of playing 'Monopoly' with their own grain and being rewarded for it. After all, wheat is probably the second oldest traded commodity in the world. How difficult can it be to sell?
But for the CWB, it is too little and a way too late.
Actually we could have had all these pricing options since the early 1980s when we started this fight again to 'minimize the CWB to producers'.
Part of the reason we didn't get it done in the 1980s was because the MSM controlled the message and it was basically a one way conversation.
The internet and good people like Kate (the real Sask Deputy-minister of Agriculture) has evened the field for us.
And now I'll bore you to death anyway ....... oh well maybe some other time. Or maybe you can read the book.
Post a Comment