Barley Growers to Have 3 Choices on Vote for Future of Canadian Wheat Board

By JOHN COTTER

RED DEER, Alta. (CP) – Western farmers will have three choices when they vote on the future of the Canadian Wheat Board’s marketing monopoly on barley.

Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl announced the wording of the ballot Monday in Red Deer, Alta., an area where many grain farmers favour marketing choice. Strahl said barley farmers can vote to maintain the board’s export monopoly, scrap the board’s role as a marketer or allow the board to be part of a free market for barley.

“Western grain farmers should have the choice on how they market their grain while preserving a strong viable yet voluntary board,” he said.

“Farmers have told us that they want to be consulted in this issue – and that’s exactly what we are delivering.”

Farmers lobbying for marketing choice have argued that they could get higher prices if they can sell barley themselves.

But supporters of the board’s monopoly say an open market would effectively kill the wheat board because it would have difficulty competing with multinational grain companies.

Strahl said he favours maintaining the board as a barley marketer but without the monopoly.

He scoffed at a suggestion that would ultimately lead to the demise of the wheat board.

The mail-in barley plebiscite is to be held between Jan. 31 and March 6.

To be eligible to vote farmers must have grown grain last year and must have grown barley in a least one of the last five years.

Farmers who don’t meet the first requirement can be included on the voters list if they make a declaration to the board explaining why.

Last Tuesday, Manitoba farmers voted about 70 per cent in favour of maintaining the board’s monopoly on wheat and barley sales in a symbolic provincial plebiscite. Strahl dismissed the results as a waste of money.

The minister has said the federal government will eventually hold a wheat plebiscite, although he has not committed to when that might be.

The Alberta Barley Commission estimates that western barley farmers grow about 11 million tonnes of barley a year. About half that amount is produced in Alberta; the rest comes from Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

The vast majority of barley is sold within Canada for animal feed and falls outside of the wheat board’s marketing monopoly.

But any barley that is sold for export or for human consumption in Canada – mainly to brewers for making beer – is sold through the board.