Organic Farmers Challenge Validity of CWB Claims

(June 24, 2002 - OSPG)    The Canadian Wheat Board claims that "once wheat and barley marketing in Western Canada is opened up, there is no going back under provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement."

"This is not what the words of the Agreement state.  Whether the CWB is considered to be either a monopoly or a state enterprise, the words in Chapter 15 of NAFTA very clearly contradict what the CWB want us to believe," states organic farmer John Husband, Wawota, Saskatchewan.

Article 1502 states:  Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent a Party from designating a monopoly.
  

and in definitions:

For purposes of this chapter:  designate means to establish, designate or authorize, or to expand the scope of a monopoly to cover an additional good or service, after the date of entry into force of this Agreement;

"These CWB claims are also contradicted by the 1998 amendments to the CWB Act that provide for the addition of any other grain into the monopoly," adds Husband, "As well, the barley monopoly has actually been dropped, then brought back in with no trade agreement problems."

"The CWB doesn't market organic grain, however, organic farmers are forced to deal with them and we are very familiar with CWB tactics," adds Bill Rees, organic farmer at Stockholm, Saskatchewan, "in their literature and at all the organic meetings they held, the CWB insisted that the Act would not allow them to let organic grain out of the monopoly.  This was plainly false information, and we have it documented."

"Our bad experiences with the CWB lead to only one rational conclusion about this special interested group - there is a lack of integrity and there is nothing they wouldn't say, or any amount of farmer's money they wouldn't spend, to hang onto the captive control they now hold over Prairie farmers," conclude both Husband and Rees.

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For more information contact:
Bill Rees  306-793-2113
John Husband  306-739-2900

**OSPG is a voluntary, and totally self-funded association of organic grain producers from all regions of the Prairie designated area with the goal of marketing choice for farmers.

Click here to read the NAFTA sections quoted in full.