Canada’s agriculture minister calls the Canadian Wheat Board’s proposed cash pricing option for malting barley a “half measure” he won’t support.
In an opinion piece released to newspapers Tuesday, Gerry Ritz writes that the CWB’s pricing plan for the 2008 malting barley crop does not go far enough for the liking of “farm groups and industry players.”
Ritz added that the CWB’s “failure was inevitable because it failed to publicly consult with western Canadian barley growers themselves.”
The CWB’s proposal was outlined for CWB permit book holders in a Dec. 24 podcast and is to be widely released this month.
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In advance of the plan’s release, however, Ritz described it in his article as attempting “to mimic the market through including some price signals and an element of direct negotiation between producers and the malting industry.”
The move does not provide “clear, accurate and fully transparent price signals back to the farmer” and will still “trap” Prairie barley growers in the CWB’s single-desk marketing system, Ritz added.
“Real action for marketing choice is the only option that will receive my full support,” he wrote, referring to the Conservative government’s phrase for opening up the single desk for Prairie barley.
Canada’s four largest malting companies, which recently went public with their support for “marketing choice,” also jointly panned the CWB’s plan in a Dec. 27 release, saying it “limits the price going back directly to farmers, thereby continuing the inability to send proper price signals to growers.”
