As the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly draws to a close, one of its directors has taken his own organization to task on respecting its No. 1 commodity: farmers.
District 2 director Jeff Nielsen attended three of seven CWB-sponsored information meetings between Aug. 15 and 17 in Medicine Hat, Camrose and Falher and called them “carbon copies” of one another with little to no substance.
He said the same people asked repeat questions at the meetings, which disappointed him.
“People were asking questions like ‘you used to not support the CWB, what made you change your mind?’” said Nielsen, a farmer in Olds. “These meetings were supposed to be information meetings on how the CWB will move forward for all producers, yet, sadly, it was not.”
According to Nielsen, every CWB survey done since 1998 has come back with the same result: the majority of farmers don’t support single desk marketing.
The ones who do support the single desk are “well-seasoned farmers,” said Nielsen.
Nielsen said the meetings quickly deteriorated into a “political rally to maintain the status quo” and did little to respect farmers as the organization moves forward.
CWB board chair Allen Oberg said meetings had to run a similar format to ensure consistency to engage farmers when talking about its single-desk format in which Western producers are forced to sell wheat and barley to the board.
“Did some similar questions come up? Of course, that’s also going to happen,” said Oberg, who farms near Forestburg and attended all but one of the meetings.
Oberg expressed displeasure over Nielsen’s open criticism and said such talk should remain in the boardroom.
“Any time a director of an organization is openly critical of the organization he represents, that’s a concern to me,” he said.
Attendance at the meetings was high and organizers had to bring out more chairs each time, according to Oberg.
In addition, the chairman said the majority of attendees were in favour of a single desk format, although there were a few dissenting voices.
“This issue is a very serious one and the changes that are coming will have some major implications on prairie agriculture,” he said.
Nielsen agreed with Oberg on that issue, but said the writing has been on the wall about the CWB’s inevitable change for some time.
“For five-and-a-half or six years the Canadian government was going to make changes (to the CWB),” he said.
“Are we prepared for it? In reality, no, we’re not. We’ve been waiting for another party to come back into power and let us stay the way we are.”
The Conservative Party’s majority government plans to dissolve the board’s 75-year monopoly on barley and wheat by Aug. 1, 2012.
