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The Food Issue
2017
grainswest.com29
1903
1943
1995
JULY 13,
1896
AUGUST 1,
2012
1897
1935
1983
2004
1962
Sydney Arthur Fisher, a farmer by trade, is
appointed by PrimeMinister Wilfrid Laurier
to cabinet and spent the next 15 years
as Canada’s agriculture minister until an
electoral defeat in 1911. He was Canada’s
longest serving agriculture minister.
The Crowsnest Freight Rate,
or Crow Rate, is implemented.
The Crow Rate was a subsidy
that benefited Prairie farmers
shipping commodities east or
farm equipment heading west
that originated in Central Canada.
The Crow Rate was temporarily
suspended during the First World
War and re-instated in 1922.
The Canadian Wheat Board (CWB)
is created. The board, also known as
the “Single Desk,” had the authority
to control marketing of all wheat and
barley in Western Canada.
Marquis, a newly created
variety, displaces Red
Fife as the predominant
variety grown in Canada—
specifically, Western Canada,
where 90 per cent of
cultivated wheat was Marquis
at the time.
Membership in the
Canadian Wheat Board is
made mandatory for farmers
via the War Measures Act.
Canada has 5,226 grain
elevators across the
country, concentrated
in Western Canada.
By 2013, that number
had dipped to a low
of 415 due to industry
consolidation and
buyouts. In 1962,
Saskatchewan alone
boasted 2,878
elevators; today, that
number has been
reduced to 173.
Scientists Keith Downey and Baldur
Stefansson invent canola at the
University of Manitoba. Canola
means Canada oil, and has the
distinct feature of low erucic acid,
an undesirable monounsaturated
omega-9 fatty acid.
EARLY
1970S
The Crow Rate
is replaced
with the Crow
Benefit—a
subsidy paid to
the railways that
kept freight rates
paid by farmers
artificially low.
The Crow Benefit is repealed. Farmers
received a one-time payout designed to
help them adjust to higher freight costs,
which in some cases doubled or tripled.
The CWB and a
number of farm
organizations
are instrumental
in stopping the
introduction of
genetically modified
(GM) wheat to
Canada. To this
day, there is no
GMwheat sold
anywhere on Earth.
The federal
government, led by
former prime minister
Stephen Harper,
formally dissolves
the Canadian Wheat
Board monopoly,
as Bill C-18, the
Marketing Freedom
for Grain Farmers
Act, becomes law.