Maltsters “not satisfied” with CWB proposals

Canada’s big four maltsters say they’re “not satisfied” with the Canadian Wheat Board’s proposals for a guaranteed price production contract for malting barley.

Details on the CWB’s proposals for a cash-price contract option for malting barley are to be widely released next month, and had been briefly outlined for CWB permit book holders in a podcast released Christmas Eve.

However, the four maltsters, under the banner of the Malting Industry Association of Canada (MIAC), said in a release Thursday that four months of talks with the CWB have resulted in a program that “does not meet the industry’s most fundamental requirement: that of providing
clear, accurate and fully transparent price signals.”

The board’s proposal, according to the MIAC, “limits
the price going back directly to farmers, thereby continuing the inability to
send proper price signals to growers.”

The group, which includes Prairie Malt, ADM Malting, Canada Malting and Rahr Malting, said it will continue its work with other stakeholders in
the barley supply chain to press for what the federal government calls “marketing choice” effective August 1, 2008.

Citing what it considered to be a lack of progress on development of “alternative mechanisms” for barley marketing, the maltsters in November officially threw their support behind the federal government’s proposals for “marketing choice.” Ottawa had originally expected to open up the CWB’s single marketing desk for Prairie barley starting in August 2007.

The Conservative government’s plans were scuttled in late July, however, by a Federal Court ruling that blocked the government from implementing its plans via regulations. The other route, amending the CWB Act via a vote in the House of Commons, was seen as unlikely to get support from any of the three federal opposition parties.

The government plans to appeal the Federal Court ruling at a hearing scheduled for Feb. 26.