Tuesday, September 16, 2014

FNA gathering interest in buying the Canadian Wheat Board

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.