The other day I attended a meeting with an agricultural theme, and as is often the case, I had some discussions on industry issues before the event actually started.
It was at that point when I mentioned that with some 22 years as a farm journalist, many of the issues have remained the same; the pros and cons of the Canadian Wheat Board, the need for value-added farm processing on the Prairies and greater diversification on the farm.
The fate of the Canadian Wheat Board seems to be sealed as the federal government has announced its intention to have the single-desk selling system gone by Aug. 1, 2012.
When discussing the impact of a change like the dismantling of the CWB, it often has participants reflecting on the loss of the so-called Crow Rate, the subsidy farmers used to receive on rail shipping costs.
When the Crow went, it was supposed to create a massive growth in value-added processing because there would be a benefit in selling into a local market rather than shipping to an export position.
There are certainly examples of successes and failures in terms of value-added processing.
There is a vibrant canola crushing sector on the Prairies and an equally strong oat processing sector. Both were likely made more viable when the Crow was eliminated.
But the list of failed efforts is every bit as long. A plant at Kelvington to make snack foods from pea flower, a strawboard plant at Kamsack and flax fibre processor at Canora are three examples all within about a 100-kilometre circle that failed.
You can add the alfalfa dehydrating sector to the list as well. It was once a vibrant sector before the loss of the Crow.
Perhaps on a larger scale, the glaring failure has been the hog sector.
The loss of the Crow was one of a long list of positives that made the hog sector seem like a natural for the Prairies, and in particular Saskatchewan.
The reality has been barns in financial red ink, the loss of processing facilities, and an industry that has gone from Cinderella to scullery maid.
And with both the successes and failures, farmers are still having to export massive amounts of grains and that means relying on elevators and rail. However those elevators have rationalized, as have the railways, and the result is farmers are using roads to haul grain further.
The costs for road construction and maintenance that the rationalizations have caused is one of those things that would be difficult to peg, but they are obviously significant.
As elevators and rail lines have disappeared, and farm trucks hit the roads for ever longer hauls, small towns have continued to die as well.
Not all the rationalization or the failures are the result of the Crow change, nor are the successes solely because of that either.
But the truth is, the costs and benefits that have resulted from the Crow are not crystal clear, nor easy to quantify.
That is going to be the same with whatever comes in terms of grain marketing after Aug. 1, 2012.
The issue of value-added processing will continue, as it remains good in theory, if not often enough in reality.
And the CWB may disappear in 10 months, but the discussion will continue as time passes, allowing for history to finally determine if the change was brilliant or folly.
