Prominent farm leaders from Western Canada met in Ottawa Tuesday with the federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to express concerns over the govern-ment’s recent actions regarding the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB).

They also pressed, on behalf of a broader group of general farm organizations, for a producer plebiscite on the CWB and offered appropriate wording for the plebiscite question.

David Rolfe, President of Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP); Bill Dobson, President of Wild Rose Agricultural Producers (WRAP); and Ken McBride, President of the Agricultural Producers of Saskatchewan (APAS) met with the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food at his office on Parliament Hill. The farm leaders represent a broader group which also includes the National Farmers Union (NFU - led by NFU President Stewart Wells).

During the meeting, the farm leaders called on the Minister to respect Section 47.1 of the CWB Act, which states that grain producers are entitled to vote on how their grain is marketed.

The farm leaders say producers clearly want to be a part of any decisions on significant changes to the future of the CWB, and they want to work with government to ensure prairie grain farmers are not disenfranchised. However, they say the federal government must not move unilaterally to change the CWB’s mandate.

The farm leaders are calling on the government to put forward a plebiscite which asks producers to select between realistic choices. To move the plebiscite forward, the coalition is offering clear questions on wheat and barley marketing. Farmers would be asked to choose between the following options for wheat (a similar question would be asked for barley):

A) I wish to maintain the ability to market all wheat, with the continuing exception of feed wheat sold domestically, through the CWB single desk system.

B) I wish to remove the single desk marketing system from the CWB and sell all wheat through an open market system.

The farm groups advocate that voter eligibility for the plebiscite be the same as that outlined in the CWB Act for CWB Director elections, with the voter list based on the 2005-06 list of CWB permit book holder. The plebiscite question offered by the group is designed to be perfectly clear, and will ensure the majority of producers are represented in the process.