Newsroom
2005
Producers must benefit from Hong Kong trade deal
December 7, 2005
Winnipeg - CWB farmer directors Ken Ritter and Larry Hill leave tomorrow for important Ministerial meetings next week in Hong Kong, where governments will attempt to pave the way for a new World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement.
"We, along with other Canadian farm organizations, want to ensure that our government remains firm in its resolve to negotiate a deal that makes sense for farmers," said Ritter, a farmer from Kindersley, Saskatchewan who chairs the CWB board of directors.
"We need a deal that helps us get more money for our crops or improves our income in some way - it's got to be about our bottom lines. We need to ensure that this deal will not erode farmers' power as key stakeholders in a grain industry dominated by a handful of multinational corporations."
Hill, who farms near Swift current, said he has seen nothing to indicate those goals will be accomplished in WTO proposals to date from the United States and European Union, who are responsible for the bulk of trade distortions in the global grain trade.
"It is their bloated systems of farm subsidies that are driving overproduction and driving down the price of grain," said Hill, chair of the CWB's trade committee. "Without deep and meaningful cuts to those subsidies, we don't have much hope of affecting farm income here. We also need real improvements to market access for our wheat and barley."
The directors welcomed an all-party resolution, unanimously passed last week by the Province of Manitoba that supports farmers' goals at the WTO.
The resolution supports efforts towards a WTO result that would give "Manitoba producers and processors significantly greater access to foreign markets, the ability to complete fairly and equitably in global markets not distorted by domestic support programs, and also maintains the right of producers to use orderly marketing systems such as supply management and the CWB."
Ritter said it is important that a deal be achieved, but not if it results only in outcomes that are negative for Canadian farmers.
"Nobody in the country can forget about loss of the Crow Rate after the last WTO round and the lack of anything meaningful in return," he said. "We have to urge the Canadian ministers to keep their eye on the ball in Hong Kong - which means ensuring producers are helped, not hindered."
WTO proposals by the U.S. and EU demand elimination of the CWB's single-desk marketing structure, which would deal a fatal blow to the CWB and strip Prairie farmers of their right to decide what system suits them best.
Controlled by western Canadian farmers, the CWB is the largest wheat and barley marketer in the world. As one of Canada's biggest exporters, the Winnipeg-based organization sells to over 70 countries and returns all sales revenue, less marketing costs, to Prairie farmers.
For more information, please contact:
Maureen Fitzhenry
Media Relations Manager
Tel: (204) 983-3101
Cell: (204) 479-2451