Canada: Pro-monopoly farmers win Canada Wheat Board vote

Farmers who support the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly on wheat and barley sales will continue to hold a narrow majority on the agency's board of directors, election results showed on Sunday, according to Reuters, December 10.

Pro-monopoly candidates won in four out of five districts, leaving a total of eight farmers on the 15-member board that support the agency's monopoly on sales of wheat and barley from the Canadian Prairies to millers, maltsters and export markets.

"I think it's time for the government to pause and have a result at what these results really mean," said Ken Ritter, CWB chairman.

Canada's minority Conservative government has promised to end the monopoly of the CWB, one of the world's largest grain marketers, which had revenues of C$3.7 billion ($3.2 billion) in the year ended July 31, 2005.

In recent months, CWB leaders and Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl have engaged in a public and increasingly bitter fight about the monopoly.

Strahl's government, elected in January, wants to give farmers the freedom to sell their grain to whatever buyer they choose, while CWB supporters point to studies showing the agency gives them clout and premiums in an industry dominated by multinationals.

Strahl will hold a farmer vote on ending the CWB's monopoly on barley early in the new year, but has said the wheat monopoly will remain in place at least until July 31, 2008.

Farmers elect 10 of the CWB's 15 directors to four-year terms.

In the vote results released on Sunday, farmers returned incumbent monopoly supporters Larry Hill, Allen Oberg and Bill Nicholson to the board.

In the province of Alberta, anti-monopoly candidate Henry Vos defeated incumbent Art Macklin, but in Saskatchewan, pro-monopoly farmer Kyle Korneychuk defeated anti-monopoly incumbent Dwayne Anderson.

Fifty-two percent of the more than 31,000 farmers eligible to vote returned their mail-in ballots, said Meyers Norris Penny, the independent accounting agency that managed the election.

The other five farmer-directors are half-way through their terms. One of them, also from Alberta, supports the government's campaign to end the monopoly, while the others support the monopoly.

The government, which guarantees the CWB's borrowings and payments, appoints the remaining five directors, including the chief executive.

Strahl recently named three strong supporters of his "marketing choice" campaign to the board.

Strahl has also given notice that he will sack the CWB Chief Executive, Adrian Measner, a 30-year CWB veteran who is appointed to the top job, after public clashes on the monopoly issue.

The board of directors has urged Strahl to reconsider the move.

Last week, the CWB also launched a court challenge against a government order that the CWB stop spending money defending its monopoly.

The United States and European Union has said the CWB's monopoly and government financial guarantees distort the international grain trade, claims that Canada has routinely dismissed.

14 December, 2006