NFU opposes Bunge-Viterra deal

If Bunge is allowed to buy Viterra, it will get billions of dollars of worth revenue potential created by and for Canadian farmers to counter the very exploitation private grain traders like Bunge visited on them a century ago, says the National Farmers Union.

The deal would make Bunge the world’s largest grain trader and it would use its clout to the detriment of farmers, the NFU warned.

The deal is awaiting a Canadian government decision on whether to allow it.

The NFU said farmers formed co-operatives to market their grain, evolving into the Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba wheat pools which Viterra bought a merged.

Even that was not enough, so farmers persuaded the federal government to form the Canadian Wheat Board and grant it monopoly power over grain exports, including a monopoly on inter-provincial grain trading.

In the 1960s and 1970s, that proved to be unpopular and federal grains ministers, beginning with Otto Lang, removed some grains from the inter-provincial monopoly, starting with barley.

Then the Conservative government of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper cancelled the Wheat Board’s monopoly, setting the stage for foreign grain-trading companies to buy export infrastructure, such as the provincial wheat pools.