"(3) Oats and Barley Policy
This is a much more and involved and difficult question. The present policy is based on ceiling prices, advance equalization payments, equalization funds and control of exports.
To a high degree, varying with the district, oats and barley are feed grains, They have therefore provided the base for the wartime feeding program covering meat, dairy and poultry products.
No one interested in a full Canadian agriculture can fail to see their essentiality in this program, but for the western producer of these grains, it must be emphasized that under present policies, they fare badly on sales prices compared with realizable export values.
The immediate problem is essentially one of fair treatment to draw continued production coupled with export control to preserve enough supplies for domestic purposes. It is apparent that the future problem may be quite contrasting, particularly for oats, because markets, export or domestic, may then be hard to find”.
We are advised that there may well be legal problems in continued control of these grains. Compared with wheat, much larger amounts of oats and barley-absolutely and relatively- are use locally and interprovincially.
Large amounts do not reach the controls of elevators or railways. It seems possible that purchase at elevators, movement over railways, and movement across interprovincial boundaries constitute fairly effective controls for the federal authority as long as they are acceptable provincially and, to some extent, locally.”
This is a much more and involved and difficult question. The present policy is based on ceiling prices, advance equalization payments, equalization funds and control of exports.
To a high degree, varying with the district, oats and barley are feed grains, They have therefore provided the base for the wartime feeding program covering meat, dairy and poultry products.
No one interested in a full Canadian agriculture can fail to see their essentiality in this program, but for the western producer of these grains, it must be emphasized that under present policies, they fare badly on sales prices compared with realizable export values.
The immediate problem is essentially one of fair treatment to draw continued production coupled with export control to preserve enough supplies for domestic purposes. It is apparent that the future problem may be quite contrasting, particularly for oats, because markets, export or domestic, may then be hard to find”.
We are advised that there may well be legal problems in continued control of these grains. Compared with wheat, much larger amounts of oats and barley-absolutely and relatively- are use locally and interprovincially.
Large amounts do not reach the controls of elevators or railways. It seems possible that purchase at elevators, movement over railways, and movement across interprovincial boundaries constitute fairly effective controls for the federal authority as long as they are acceptable provincially and, to some extent, locally.”
Comment