Farmers of North America is soliciting support from its
members – at $10,000 to $50,000 each – to make an attempt to buy the Canadian
Wheat Board.
Farmers of North America, with offices in Saskatoon, is
already in the midst of soliciting funding to build a major nitrogen-production
facility.
It says the two projects would align nicely because the
Canadian Wheat Board’s grain elevators could serve as supply centres for
marketing fertilizer, including FNA-produced nitrogen.
The fertilizer plant is scheduled to open in 2017.
The invitation to show support for buying the Canadian Wheat
Board is in the early stages and much remains to be done before the farmer
buying group will be in a position to open negotiations with the wheat board
and its owner, the federal government.
Meanwhile the wheat board is negotiating to buy three terminal elevators on the Prairies.
The government ended the wheat board’s monopoly over the
export of Prairie-grown grains in 2012.
There was considerable opposition to that move, including
court actions that failed.
The Ontario Wheat Marketing Board voluntarily opened the
market to competition for the marketing of mostly soft winter wheats.
Some hard red wheats were also grown in Ontario under
contract to the seed supplier and its clientele.
