Cargill: Canadian Wheat
Burbach, Roger
The family farm* in America today is an endangered species as modern agribusiness consolidates its hold over the agricultural economy. In the past year, the newly formed American Agriculture...
...More opposed to big business than their counterparts south of the border, Canadian farmers, in response to price gouging and speculation by private grain companies, organized marketing cooperatives in the first quarter of this century to transport and sell their grain...
...farmers...
...In the 1970s, however, Cargill has been moving aggressively to undermine this system of grain handling...
...The anger of these farmers has led them to storm through the halls of the U.S...
...corporation more than any other - Cargill - exemplifies the efforts of U.S...
...Rapeseed, a grain used to make vegetable oil, is not controlled by the board, and Cargill has moved quickly to become a major force in rapeseed marketing...
...Faced with the spiraling cost of corporateproduced agricultural inputs (tractors, fertilizers and pesticides), and the decline in the price of basic agricultural commodities like wheat and corn (wheat prices have dropped over 50 percent since 1973), many family farms are being forced into bankruptcy while largescale, corporate farms assume increasing importance...
...One U.S...
...We've got to fight Cargill now...
...This farm militancy, while not questioning the very dynamics of capitalism which continually drive out the * The size of the family farm can vary from less than a hundred acres to more than a thousand, depending on the region, the fertility of the soil and the crops grown...
...We've got to coordinate our actions to get rid of the monopolies that dominate our lives on both sides of the border...
...smallest farm producers, is nonetheless significant because it focuses attention on the crisis in the country's agricultural system...
...According to a company source, Cargill already transports over 25 percent of the grain that is exported by the Wheat Board...
...To this day the Wheat Board, rather than private grain trading companies, negotiates the export contracts for most of Canada's wheat...
...Once particular 37update * updatee update update grains are removed from the jurisdiction of the Wheat Board, Cargill is better able to manipulate the market and dominate it...
...In recent years, U.S...
...The May/June 1978 subsequent establishment of the Wheat Board by the Canadian government aided the cooperatives by regulating the internal marketing of grain and by controlling the country's grain exports...
...agribusiness to undermine small Canadian farmers...
...In the early seventies it was discovered that agents of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were working in the National Farmers Union to gain information on the militant activities of the farmers...
...Once Cargill becomes stronger and wipes out the cooperatives, the company will act as a monopoly and control our grain prices...
...Cargill has a major ally in its efforts to undermine the farm protest - the government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau...
...Ever since Cargill's acquisition of grain elevators in 1974, the National Farmers Union has organized demonstrations against the company, persuaded farmers not to sell to Cargill, and has undertaken an educational campaign to inform Canadian farmers how a powerful corporation like Cargill manipulates international grain prices...
...The farmers realize that their very livelihood is threatened by the activities of Cargill and the Trudeau government...
...Cargill's regional terminals favor the large scale farmers who can buy or contract for trailer trucks to haul their grain long distances to the terminals where they receive premium prices that compensate for the shipping costs...
...To come to grips with the fundamental problems they face, farmers in Canada and the United States will have to challenge the monopolies and the very economic system of which they are a part...
...CANADIAN FARM RESISTANCE Farmers in Canada are organizing to resist Cargill's advances...
...Cargill is also gaining influence within the Wheat Board...
...Cargill is also moving to limit the marketing powers of the Wheat Board...
...Department of Agriculture and to protest in front of the Chicago Board of Trade, the bastion of the monied interests that speculate on agricultural commodities...
...The Trudeau government has also moved against the National Farmers Union...
...Another farmer observed, "Our fight here is similar to that of the American Agriculture Movement in the United States...
...In the past year, the newly formed American Agriculture Movement has mobilized small and medium sized farmers who confront the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression...
...agribusiness corporations like Del Monte, Quaker Oats, and International Multifoods have expanded rapidly in Canada...
...As one farmer succinctly noted, "If Cargill gets its way here, the smaller farmers are going to be forced out...
...The cooperatives grew rapidly, and became especially strong in Canada's three major wheat producing provinces --- Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba...
...The campaign against Cargill is coordinated by Canada's militant farm organization, the National Farmers Union...
...As one farmer said, "We have to keep control of our own grain elevator system...
...A former executive of the company now sits on an advisory commission of the Board, and Cargill is also being given an increasing number of the Board's contracts for shipping Canadian grain abroad...
...Trudeau, while proclaiming his intention to protect "national interests," continues to permit multinational corporations like Cargill to expand their influence in the Canadian economy...
...As part of its expansionist strategy, Cargill is building large scale regional grain terminals that bypass the smaller rural country elevators located in most of the farm communities and owned by the cooperatives...
...Thus Cargill's operations are not only undermining the cooperatives, but also the smaller farmers who receive less for their grain because they can't ship to the terminals...
...The largest grain trading corporation in the world, Cargill is maneuvering to gain an ascendant position in the Canadian market...
...CARGILL VERSUS CANADIAN CO-OPS Historically, Canadian farmers have exercised more control over the marketing of their grain than have U.S...
...Family farmers in the United States are not the only ones threatened by the continued growth of corporate agriculture...
...Here family farm means an agricultural unit that is owned and operated largely by the members of the family and that uses little hired help...
...Firmly implanted in all of the other major grain exporting markets of the world (the United States, Argentina, Australia, France, and Brazil), Cargill in 1974 became a major force in the Canadian grain trade by acquiring the National Grain Company, a firm that owned a number of grain elevators, five feed manufacturing plants, and port facilities at Vancouver and Thunder Bay in Canada...
Vol. 12 • May 1978 • No. 3
