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Newsroom
1998
CWB warns Canadian farmers will be hurt by subsidy warDate: May 29, 1998
Winnipeg -- Chief Commissioner Lorne Hehn warned today that U.S. export subsidies will be disastrous for Canadian farmers. The U.S. announced yesterday that it will use export enhancement subsidies to ship 30 000 tonnes of barley into European Union (EU) markets.
Hehn appealed to the U.S. and EU not to repeat the fiasco of the 1980s. "The trade war of the late '80s did not change market share or trade volumes," said Hehn. "Instead, it sent world grain prices plummeting and Canadian farmers were caught in the crossfire."
Hehn said Canadian farmers, faced with higher input and transportation costs, will be severely hurt by a renewed subsidy war. "Canadian farmers cannot compete with the treasuries of the world's wealthiest nations."
Although the U.S. says the barley subsidy is in retaliation against a recent EU sale of subsidized barley into the U.S., Hehn says past experience has shown that tit-for-tat retaliation quickly escalates into a full-blown trade war.
EU export subsidies on wheat and barley have been growing larger over the past several months and the CWB has been relaying its concerns to the federal government. The CWB will also convey its opposition to continued EU export subsidies on wheat and barley when CWB senior staff meet with Dr. Franz Fischler, the EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, in Winnipeg on June 8.
The CWB is one of the world's largest wheat and barley exporters, with annual sales revenue over $6 billion. It markets Prairie-grown wheat and barley to over 70 countries around the world. As the farmers' single-desk marketing agency, the CWB returns all sales revenues, less the costs of marketing, to wheat and barley farmers in Western Canada.
