The Canadian Wheat Board: Marketing in the New Millennium

W.J.C. Cherwinski is a professor of history and co-ordinator of Canadian
Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is the co-author of
Lectures in Canadian Labour and Working-Class History.

If Canadians are aware of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), chances are
their impressions are formed by images of fiercely independent farmers
being arrested at the American border for trying, Robin Hood–style, to
challenge the CWB’s monopoly to sell Canada’s grain abroad. Schmitz
and Furtan, two noted agricultural economists associated with the
University of Saskatchewan, clearly demonstrate that the CWB’s
operations are far more complex than this simplistic scenario suggests.
Their objective in trying to explain the CWB to Canadians, and to the
world, is to shape future policy by trying to make sense of the web of
local, national, and international connections surrounding the marketing
agency. In this way, they try to bring some reason to the often
rancorous political debate over whether or not the CWB should be
retained.

Despite a lengthy glossary of terms, the volume is a veritable
minefield (particularly for the outsider) because of its alphabet soup
of acronyms for public and private agencies in the production, storage,
shipping, distribution, and marketing of grain. Thus, it is not a book
for the lay person trying to gain insight into a complex issue. In the
end, the authors argue that the CWB should be retained provided it
remains adaptable to changing circumstances at all levels of its
involvement.