Pro-Free Trade Farmers' Groups Undercut United Front On Sovereignty At WTO

The thing to remember is that Randy Hoback and his colleagues are not family farmers, but instead captains of industry, an industry that just happens to produce food instead of cars or computers. He attended WTO not representing farmers per say, but the industrial elite. No morals, no patriotism, just looking for deal that nets him more money. That he wraps his attitude in the cloth of free trade is shameless.

Yes, our Canadian Wheat Board only strengthened the hand of Canadian farmers and their access to markets worldwide. It is these onesided NAFTA-WTO rules that try to undermine the security Canadian farmers enjoy. Couple that with the subsidies that US and European farmers receive (which is against their own rules!) and of course Canadian farmers are going to suffer for it! Imagine the outrage by Europe and the USA if we subsidized! But of course, it`s all a double standard. We`re constantly told that governments have no place in business, to ensure a 'level' playing field. But as we see, US and Euro farmers are subsidized, and the Canadian government subsidizes Bombardier anytime they come crying to Ottawa. Now auto industries are holding a gun to the heads of governments. No, the worst thing our country could do is to abandon supply-management marketing boards, and adopt a US style socialism for wealthy farmers and agri-businesses.

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Dave Ruston

These farmers are in the minority since the CWB is a farmer directed agency (10 farmers elected as directors and 5 are appointed by the government so if it wasn't working to farmers' best interest they could have voted it to be dissolved by now).Here are some interesting facts about how the CWB operates and benefits farmers.<blockquote><b>4. To how many countries does the CWB sell grain? What is our market share?</b><p> The CWB exports wheat, durum and barley to more than 70 countries. On average the CWB has about 20 per cent of the world market share in wheat, 65 per cent of durum wheat, 30 per cent of malting barley and 15 per cent of feed barley.<p> <p><b>5. Why does the CWB need a monopoly to sell farmers' grain? Can't this all be done through grain companies?</b><p> The delivery monopoly and the control it gives the CWB over the western Canadian inventory of wheat and barley are essential to carrying out the sales strategy. In a sales negotiation, the monopoly means the CWB is the only game in town for the customer who wants to buy western Canadian wheat and barley. This makes it possible to charge higher prices than if there were many sellers. If the buyer really wants the Canadian product and CWB customer service - and many do because of the superior quality of both - the buyer has to pay what the CWB asks.<p> The CWB has the ability to price differently to different markets on a given day without eroding returns from premium markets. It can do this because it is the only supplier of the grains it markets, not because it has substantially better sales people or more marketing expertise (these help but are not sufficient by themselves). Without the monopoly, the CWB would be selling in direct competition with other sellers of Canadian grain. Such competition among sellers would quickly reduce the market price for a given quality of grain to one level. <p><p><b>6. What about market development? Couldn't other organizations develop markets just as well as the CWB does?</b><p> The single most important advantage of the CWB approach to sales and marketing is that market development is directed and controlled by the only seller of that grain. The CWB is able to capture all the benefits from its market development efforts and pass them on to farmers. Compare this to United Statesfarmers who rely on private grain companies to export their products. These companies are hesitant to invest in long-term market development activities because they are not assured of capturing the benefits of these market expansion activities (if they could, they would do so for themselves, not for farmers). Consequently, market development, to the extent that it is done, is undertaken by national, non-profit, commodity organizations whose activities are not connected to the commercial sales function.<p><p> <b>7. To whom is the CWB accountable?</b><p> The CWB is a shared goverance corporation. This is an unique term, and it essentially means that the CWB is governed by farm and government representatives. Ten directors are elected directly by producers. The remaining five Directors are appointed by government for their expertise in various disciplines. The role of these 15 people is to ensure the CWB is working to maximize returns to Prairie farmers.</blockquote>This is from the FAQ page of the CWB website at <a href="http://www.cwb.ca/en/about/myths_facts/faqs.jsp">Canadian Wheat Board</a><p>Why any farmer would want to leave this monopoly set up for his benefit so he can have the privilege of selling to another private monopoly (American at that) is beyond me. Such farmers may get higer prices in the short-term but doesn't it occur to them that without the CWB there they will be at their mercy. Another thing is this, these farmers essentially want to use the CWB as a means to get these American monopolies to prop up their price to compete. As a taxpayer, you can forget using the CWB in this way, ie. my taxes going to pay for the loan guarantees that the CWB uses as operating funds to provide leverage against private companies. Either the CWB is used as intended or it goes altogether and farmers are at the mercy of American monopolies.

Right on! The other problem farmers would have is ensuring they get paid. If they are forced to sit at their computers all day looking for markets and then hoping to recieve payment for their product, how much farming will get done? Or is that another job creation strategy? The CWB makes sure they get paid, for their product, finds the markets and allows them to farm. The politicians have a reason to try to promote it as being a bad deal.

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

I wish people would take the time to get to know me before they paint such an evil picture. I left the coperate world 5 years ago to farm. I am lucky to be able to give my kids a chance to grow up in rural Saskatchewan on the Farm. What makes me mad is we don't have more farmers in my rm so that we could create more comunity spirit. It would be awesome to have a senior hockey team or nieghbors to curl with, but the lack of farm income has forced my friends and neigbors out of the industry. My reason to be in Geneva to fight for market access and removal of trade distorting subsidies that would allow for a greater return from the market place thus allowing smaller farmers and my friends to keep farming. This was not a CWB bashing trip nor was it an attack on supply management. These issue where brought up from our trading partners and showed to be barriers that could have these trade distorting programs reduced and eliminated. WTO is going to force changes around the world. This is going to happen with or with out Canada's involvement. We have to face this realty and make the structural changes in our industry so that we can survive and compete globaly. I would recomend that everyone should read a small book called "Who Moved My Cheese" Change is alway happening and what has worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. Our challeng is to make the changes.
We can change the CWB to compete and thrive in open market. Look how well federated CO-OP competes with Walmart.... The CWB issue is not going away and I think that it is important that we start to elect directors who have a vision to create a CWB that can survive and add value . It is unfortunate that a director gets elected on only one issue and not on what his vision or expertise that he will add to the CWB.

What would happen if somebody finally told the WTO in no uncertain terms that they are going to withdraw from it and then proceed to sign independent trade deals with countries of their choice? The WTO could do nothing because their only means of enforcement for their trade deals is to give countries complaining the right to apply retaliatory tarrifs as compensation for what they consider unfair trade practices against them. The WTO may attempt to retaliate and isolate Canada; however, our country pretty much has everything necessary to sustain us so we could easily weather such a storm until remaining WTO members decided they needed our resources more than they need the WTO. This way we could be finally rid of the WTO (a criminal institution in its present configuration). Fantasy? Very likely, as there is no one with enough guts to carry it out, least of all any Canadian as we seem to be content to continually take it in the ass when it comes to international matters.