With the Wheat Board elections over and the barley plebiscite coming up, I’ve decided to do a series of Wheat Board related columns over the next few weeks. Some of the columns will be very opinionated and others (like this first one) will be more of a historical nature, introducing the background of various elements of the Board.

If you are like me and have lived on the Prairies all of your life, you will have heard the Wheat Board debated endlessly. You may wonder when and how the Wheat Board started.

While the question may be simple, the answer is fairly complex because there are different starting points for different Wheat Boards in the history of western Canada.

The first Wheat Board was imposed on western farmers during World War I, to keep grain prices down. The government felt it needed cheap grain for the war effort and wanted to control the wheat market. In 1920, this Wheat Board came to an end because wheat prices had started to fall.

Through the 1920s, the pooling of grain became very popular, leading to the formation of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool among other happenings. While a few farmers demanded compulsory pooling, the Wheat Pool and other farm groups opposed the idea, preferring instead a voluntary share of the market.

In 1935, the Wheat Board was again established, but its main feature was a price floor for wheat. Through 1936-1937, this floor was so low that farmers sold all their wheat on the open market.

The Wheat Board as we know it today really got going in 1943, when the government (again concerned about high wheat prices) imposed a monopoly for wheat and other grains. The basic features were the same as we know, with price pooling, initial payments etc. The major difference between this board and the one during World War I is that this board has never been disbanded.

(Source of the above material: The Story of A Province by John Archer and A.M. Derby.)

I’m Brad Trost, your Member of Parliament, and I welcome your feedback. Write or call my offices.