Farmers Vote Against Conservative Plan to Remove Canadian Wheat Board Exclusivity

62% of all western Canadian farmers who grow wheat have voted to retain the Canadian Wheat Board as a "single-desk" to buy farmers' wheat and market it to the world.

The Conservative government has declared its intention to allow other buyers to get into the action. This will dovetail nicely with the Conservatives' ongoing program of selling out all Canadian resources to corporate foreign control.

That would also open the door to the classic exploitation of small farmers that has existed since time immemorial, where farmers would basically be bidding against each other to sell their crops and buyers could shop around for the lowest prices.

Another obvious result would be the continuing erosion of the viability of the family farm, as larger farms would be in a position to bid prices lower and eventually continue to buy out smaller farmers who would have a tougher time to compete. The end result - a landscape of corporate-owned mega-farms.

Now that the farmers have voted decisively on the matter, the Conservative government is left to spin the result this way and that, quibbling about who was qualified to vote, etc., and stating that the vote is not binding. Meanwhile, the farmers say that the government does not have the right to shut down the CWB without first consulting them in a vote. So they will force the issue in court if the government follows through with its delared intention to end the CWB's exclusivity as of Aug., 2012.