The Canadian Wheat Board () was a marketing board for wheat and barley in Western Canada. Established by the Parliament of Canada on 5 July 1935, its operation was governed by the Canadian Wheat Board Act as a mandatory producer marketing system for wheat and barley in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and a small part of British Columbia. It was illegal for any farmer in areas under the CWB's jurisdiction to sell their wheat and barley through any other channel than the CWB. Although often called a monopoly, it was actually a monopsony since it was the only buyer of wheat and barley. It was a marketing agency acting on behalf of Western Canadian farmers, passing all profits from its operation back to farmers. Its market power over wheat and barley marketing was referred to as the "Single Desk".
Amid criticism, the Canadian Wheat Board's Single Desk marketing power officially ended on 1 August 2012 as a result of Bill C-18, also known as the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, which was tabled by the Harper government and passed in December 2011. The Canadian Wheat Board changed its name to simply CWB, reflecting its changed status. CWB continued to operate as a grain company, although the bill also set a timeline for the eventual privatization of CWB. On 15 April 2015, it was announced that a 50.1% majority stake in CWB would be acquired by Global Grain Group, a joint venture of Bunge Limited and the Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company, for $250 million. CWB was combined with the grain assets of Bunge Canada to form G3 Canada Limited.
The third-highest sales year for wheat industry in Canada was 2011–2012 when the CWB "sold $7.2-billion worth of grain to more than 70 countries, $4.9 billion of which was paid back to farmers."
History
First wheat boards
By the early 20th century in Western Canada, grain purchasing, transportation and marketing were dominated by large companies headquartered outside the region, such as the Canadian Pacific Railway and the trading companies which dominated the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. Producers were deeply suspicious of the business practices of these companies and hostile to their positions of power. Farmers were impressed by the success of state-led marketing as it was practised during World War I. The government created a series of boards in and around the war, each with progressively more power to control the grain trade. The Board of Grain Commissioners of 1912 was purely for regulation (to supervise grading, etc.), but by 1915 the government had seized control of all wheat exports to help the war effort, and by 1917 futures trading on the Winnipeg Exchange was banned. In 1917, the new Board of Grain Supervisors was given monopoly powers over wheat, and fixed uniform prices across the country. Soon afterwards, the Board took over marketing of other crops as well. Farmers were worried that after the war, prices would crash and various agrarian groups lobbied Ottawa to keep the Board in place. The government relented by creating the Canadian Wheat Board for the 1919 crop only. Farmers got a guaranteed price for that crop, paid immediately, and later a further payment once the Board had completed the year's sales. This system of guaranteed prices and distributed income was extremely popular and when the Board dissolved in 1920, many farmers were livid. It certainly did not help that, "from a peak of $2.85 per bushel in September, 1920 [prices] began a slow and sickening decline to less than a dollar a bushel in late 1923." This marked contrast to the stable prices of 1919–1920 Board seemed to confirm farmers' suspicions of market trading.
Interregnum (1920–1935)
After the dissolution of the early board in 1920, farmers turned to the idea of farmer-owned cooperatives. Cooperative grain elevator operators already existed, like United Grain Growers, which had already been started in 1917. In 1923 and 1924 the wheat pools were created to buy Canadian wheat and resell it overseas. The Alberta Wheat Pool, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, and Manitoba Pool Elevators quickly became giants in the industry and displaced the private traders. However they did not hedge against falling prices (instead relying on provincial government guarantees), and during the price collapse of 1929, they effectively went bankrupt. The majority of farmers did not want the private traders to return, and now it also seemed impossible for them to own their own marketing companies, so the idea of a government marketing board was revived.