Wheat pools in Canada
A wheat pool is a
In Canada in 1923 and 1924, three wheat pools were created. They were
The wheat pools were successful grain traders and marketers from 1923 to 1929. During the Great Depression, however, huge losses forced them out of the grain marketing business. They persisted as grain elevator operators but after 1935 all grain marketing in Canada shifted to a new government agency, Canadian Wheat Board.
During the post-war era, the wheat pools almost completely replaced the private grain companies as elevator operators. By the 1990s, however, most had
Background
Agrarian activism
The pools were the culmination of a long tradition of agrarian activism dating back decades in the
Farmer grievances
At this time farmers in the
Specifically they despised the private
Previous attempts to reform the grain trade
Elevator co-ops
Some attempts had been made to set up co-operative grain elevators. There were many local co-ops that owned a single elevator, but the two most important were the
Government marketing
During the Great War the Canadian government had completely taken over the grain industry. The government created a series of boards in and around the war, each with progressively more power to control the grain trade. The Board of Grain Commissioners of 1912 was purely for regulation (to supervise grading, etc.), but by 1915 the government had seized control of all wheat exports to help the war effort, and by 1917 futures trading on the Winnipeg Exchange was banned. In 1917, the new Board of Grain Supervisors was given monopoly powers over wheat, and fixed uniform prices across the country. Soon after the Board took over marketing of crops as well. Farmers were worried that after the war prices would crash and various agrarian groups lobbied Ottawa to keep the Board in place. The government relented by creating the Canadian Wheat Board for the 1919 crop only. Farmers got a guaranteed price for that crop, paid immediately, and later a further payment once the Board had sold all harvest and made a profit. This system of guaranteed prices and distributed income was extremely popular and when the Board dissolved in 1920, farmers were livid. It certainly did not help that, "from a peak of $2.85 per bushel in September, 1920 [prices] began a slow and sickening decline to less than a dollar a bushel in late 1923."[6] This marked contrasted to the stable prices of 1919–1920 Board seemed to confirm farmer's suspicions of market trading.
See also
There were three wheat pools in Canada:
- Alberta Wheat Pool 1923–1998 – merged to form Agricore Cooperative Limited
- Saskatchewan Wheat Pool 1924–2007 – renamed Viterra; in 2012 acquired by Glencore and Canada assets sold to Agrium
- Manitoba Pool Elevators 1926–1998 – merged to form Agricore Cooperative Limited
- Canadian Wheat Board was a government agency responsible for exporting wheat. Created in 1935 by the federal government, its future is now threatened by government desire to divest their interest in CWB to form a co-operative.
- Paper Wheat, a documentary play and film about the formation of Canada's wheat pools
- David Handley
- History of agriculture in Canada
References
Citations
- ^ Rennie 2000, p. 222.
- ^ Rennie 2000, p. 3.
- ^ Grant MacEwan, Harvest of Bread, (Saskatoon: Prairie Books, 1969), 99; Allan Levine, "Open Market or 'Orderly Marketing':The Winnipeg Grain Exchange and the Wheat Pools, 1923 1929", Agricultural History, 61, 2 (Spring,1987), 51; Fairbairn, 8–13
- ^ Rennie 2000, p. 153.
- ^ Fairbairn, 6.
- ^ MacEwan 1969, p. 103.
Bibliography
- Levine, Allan (Spring 1987). "Open Market or 'Orderly Marketing': The Winnipeg Grain Exchange and the Wheat Pools, 1923-1929". JSTOR 3744001.
- MacEwan, Grant (1969). Harvest of Bread. Saskatoon: Prairie Books.
- Rennie, Bradford James (2000). The Rise of Agrarian Democracy: The United Farmers and Farm Women of Alberta, 1909–1921. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.