By Sarah Sutton
Alberta Farmer Express staff

As Canadian Wheat Board directors and government officials continue to discuss the single-desk system, barley growers across the Prairies wonder what the outlook is for this season.

When John De Pape, an agriculture consultant and partner in Integrated Malt Barley Management Ltd., was asked to speak at a morning session of FarmTech 2008 on Jan. 31 in Edmonton, he thought he might have some news to share with the industry.

“I wanted to say ‘This is where we’re going,’ but instead I’ll give you the lay of the land,” he says. “We’re at a critical point right now in this industry -- I can’t underscore that enough.”

De Pape makes it clear that he is not anti-Canadian Wheat Board, but anti-single desk. His sentiments were echoed at lunchtime by Alberta Agriculture Minister George Groeneveld, who provided some of the news De Pape was looking for.

Groeneveld was in Ottawa yesterday for a meeting with federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, farm and agribusiness groups and the CWB. After the meeting, Ritz announced that the federal government will introduce legislation to remove the single marketing desk for Prairie barley, whether CWB directors support the idea or not. This would end the board’s monopoly on barley sales and allow producers to sell their barley privately.

“Top 10”

De Pape provides a “Top 10” list of reasons why he can’t support the single desk in barley, which include non-commercial contracts, poor communication and lack of clarity, a high-cost system, market distortions, price discrimination, lack of leadership, lack of arbitrage, stunted growth in value-added, lack of leadership and lack of transparency and market signals.

He believes the barley industry would do better in an open market and points to an example in the U.S., where the malt premium in Montana was $1.23 per bushel on average over feed barley; by comparison, CWB malt barley was 75 cents per bushel over CWB feed.

In discussing these issues, De Pape refers to a number of numbers: 15 per cent of the barley crop in Canada is directly involved in the CWB; 100 per cent of the barley market is impacted by Canadian wheat policies and activities; 62 per cent of farmers voted for marketing choice in a plebiscite last year; eight farmers showed up at a rally supporting the CWB; and zero is the level of interest of maltsters wanting to enter the domestic malt industry.

“Maltsters are expanding into other countries and didn’t even consider Canada because of the single-desk system,” says De Pape.

What barley growers and maltsters need going forward, he says, are solid price signals, binding commercial contracts, competition and leadership.