Minister needs to put single desk option on the grain transp

[Oscar]

Minister needs to put single desk option on the grain transportation table

www.cwbafacts.ca

NEWS RELEASE Canadian Wheat Board Alliance

Embargoed to February 26, 2014, 9 AM EDT

(Pelly, Sk., February 26, 2014) Farmers facing huge cuts in grain prices, long delivery delays, and cash flow problems as they prepare for spring seeding find the response of the Federal and Provincial Agriculture Ministers to the grain crisis pathetic, observed Kyle Korneychuk, spokesperson for the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance, a prairie wide organization representing grain farmers.

“Nobody, least of all farmers, are being fooled by Minister Ritz’s claim he is considering all options for fixing the multi-billion dollar wreck he created” said Korneychuk from his Pelly area wheat farm. “It is time to give farmers back democratic control of their grain marketing, since the private trade has failed completely. The best remedy is to reverse the destruction of the farmer-controlled Canadian Wheat Board (CWB)” Korneychuk observed.

Korneychuk dismissed the suggestion that the railways are now prepared to negotiate and sign level of service agreements with grain shippers. “There is nothing new in this, the CWB did this all the time” Korneychuk said. “However, the inland terminals don’t have the same negotiating power with the railways simply because their terminals are mostly captive to one or the other of the railways. In any event, the terminals simply recover any extra costs imposed by the railways from the price they pay farmers.” The government, Korneychuk said, has destroyed the only organization (the CWB) willing to take the railways to court over level of service.

Korneychuk also dismissed the suggestion by Saskatchewan Highways and Infrastructure Minister Don McMorris that farmers negotiate contracts with grain companies with reciprocal financial penalties. “Most farmers already attempt to negotiate such contracts, but farmers will always be at a disadvantage when doing so” said Korneychuk. “Farmers wanting to haul to that elevator in the future will think twice or three times before taking that company to court.”

“We have heard the song and dance about the railways, grain companies, and Ottawa working cooperatively to increase system efficiency before,” said Korneychuk “and it begs the question of who will benefit? From past experience farmers know any efficiency gains go as profits to the bigger players in the system and that extra money will come out of farmers’ grain cheques. "The case in point is the fact Ottawa has refused to conduct a railway costing review, despite the railways already overcharging farmers by more than $175 million per year.”

“This shipping chaos means farmers have now missed record high prices and no amount of magical thinking about options to make this defective private system work will recover the billions of lost dollars and lost customers caused by the destruction of our single desk wheat board,” Korneychuk observed.

Korneychuk went on to say: “As long as farmers have no collective bargaining power they will be the donkeys the big companies ride for their profit.”

Korneychuk concluded by saying: “Orderly marketing and the single desk Wheat Board addressed our disadvantages of distance, a constrained transportation system, and competition from other often heavily subsidized nations. Without the single desk farmers are simply exploited by more powerful players who can download the costs of competition onto them, which is exactly what we are seeing with the chaos at port this year and the Minister is ignoring the only effective remedy which is to restore the Wheat Board he destroyed.” - 30 –

For further information call:

Kyle Korneychuk at (306) 537-0950

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Who We Are: The Alliance is a politically non-partisan organization focused specifically on the Canadian Wheat Board. Members of the Alliance recognize the advantages the Board brought to producers through the single desk and price pooling, quality assurance through the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC), as well as the important role the CWB played as an advocate for farmers in transportation, producer cars, and on the world stage in trade disputes and negotiations. The Alliance draws memberships throughout the west.