In addition to the establishment of marketing freedom, Ottawa plans to cut farmers’ costs, invest in innovation and develop new markets, Ritz said at the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association convention in Edmonton.
Wheat in Western Canada brings in nearly $4 billion to the farm gate and represents $5.6 billion in exports, but Ritz said the crop is in decline despite the growth of the middle classes in markets such as China and India.
“We’ve seen slippage in our production capacity of wheat over the last two decades — less and less wheat being grown, less markets demanding hard red (wheat variety) predominantly,” Ritz told reporters.
Scientists are mapping the genome of wheat and that could lead to stronger and gluten-free varieties, he said.
Ritz said the government also wants to make it easier for farmers to get their wheat to market by introducing the Fair Rail Freight Service Act, which would give shippers the right to enter into a commercial service agreement with the railways.
“The average shipment in Western Canada is 1,400 kilometres to get it to port and that takes rail in most instances to do it. There were a lot of instances where the railways would step up to the challenge and do a great job … and there were other instances where it slips a little bit.”
Amendments introduced to the Canada Grain Act as part of the budget eliminate mandatory inward weighing and inspection of grain done between elevator and port by the Canadian Grain Commission. Ritz said that will cut $20 million out of the farmers’ cost of shipping grain yearly.
“With farmers no longer owning the wheat to port as was done under the Canadian Wheat Board, there was no need for that anymore.”
Ritz also revelled in Thursday’s decision by the Supreme Court of Canada that it will not hear an appeal by eight former Wheat Board directors who argued the government should have held a plebiscite among grain producers before making radical changes.
Ritz said stripping the board’s monopoly “has gone well” for farmers. “At the end of the day, they were able to capitalize on some pretty good prices in the marketplace and deliver in a timely way. A farm’s like any other business; it relies on cash flow.”
Farmers attending the convention applauded Ritz for removing the board’s monopoly on western wheat and barley sales.
“The transition from the single desk to the open market has worked so extremely well and it’s been so seamless,” said Rolf Penner, a wheat farmer from Morris, Man. “We all expected some kind of hiccup somewhere and really there hasn’t been any.”
But Wheat Board supporters such as the National Farmers Union vowed to continue their fight.
“This is a dark day for western Canadian farmers and the marketing agency that worked solely on their behalf,” said president Terry Boehm, in a statement released Friday.
“Farmers will continue to pursue this matter in the courts, through our class action suit against the Harper government.”
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