Abstract
Reviewed by : Doug Owram (doug.owram@ubc.ca ), Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia, Canada
The traditional approach to the history of Canadian wheat focuses on domestic issues, specifically the continued contest between farmers and large entities like grain companies and railways. Out of this search for greater farm leverage came the major institutional and regulatory systems that characterized Canadian wheat policy. The only period in which international institutions and policies come to the fore of the discussion is during the world wars when wheat became a lifeline and part of the war effort. But Magnan takes a different approach in his book, setting the Canadian wheat trade against a complex international world.
Shifting political preferences, supply chains, technology, corporate practices, and a host of other events create a particular food regime at any moment in time. For example, the initial establishment of Canada as a primary supplier of wheat to the UK would not have been possible without the development of new milling techniques that were compatible with the hard varieties of Red Fife and Marquis wheat. The predominance of that wheat regime collapsed after World War II, as the British, for political reasons, reversed a century-old policy of importing food in favour of encouraging domestic production. This was facilitated, in turn, by the development of new baking processes in the UK which required a lower concentration of hard wheat. These examples illustrate Magnan’s contribution to bringing out the way in which changes in technology or preference profoundly changed the potential and problems for the Canadian wheat industry and for the producers, Canadian farmers.
With this integrated approach to the nature of the wheat trade, Magnan divides the history of the international wheat trade into three “food regimes.” The first, running from roughly 1900 to the end of World War II, is the one most Canadian historians recognize. Canada and the UK were mutually dependent. The UK was by far Canada’s largest market, and Canada was a dominant figure in the international wheat trade. The second regime, initiated by World War II and its aftermath, was dominated by American power. By keeping agriculture out of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the Americans were free to develop a range of subsidies and supply management that severely challenged Canada’s place in the world grain trade. Only the US obsession with communism and its prohibition on wheat exports to China and the USSR gave Canada some breathing room to develop replacements for the declining UK market.
The third regime arrived around the mid-nineties and was characterized by the forces of neo-liberalism and corporatization. The World Trade Organization rules affected agricultural policies and government monopolies, and regulation diminished as free market forces dominated. The result was a dramatic shift in the way wheat was traded. In the 1970s, Magnan notes, about 90 percent of international wheat flowed through state monopolies. By 2005, it was 29 percent (112).
In all of this complexity, Magnan sees good and bad forces. On the “bad” side, the USA is protectionist, even ruthless, in its efforts to support its agriculture. The European Union (EU) isn’t much better. Major corporations, especially those involved in genetically modified crops, are also viewed with suspicion—though Warburton’s, the major UK baking company, is an exception in that it accounts for a significant amount of Canada’s trade to the UK.
The “good” force is undoubtedly the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) and its system of regulated purchasing, pricing, and marketing. Magnan is a fan of the “single-desk system” by which all wheat is sold through the CWB, and sees it as protection for farmers in a world where competition for sales, the purchasing power of large corporations, and industrial agricultural operations all create an uneven playing field. This of course was the initial concept behind the Wheat Board. Even as changing international practices undermined the ability and power of the CWB, Magnan argues it adapted successfully and continued to play a constructive role. The decision to alter the system was not, as some would conclude, an inevitability, but the result of ideology at the expense of Canadian farmers. “With the dismantling of the single-desk system in 2012, the Canadian Wheat Board no longer serves as the champion and protector of the Canadian ‘brand’” (133).
This book brings a more nuanced and subtle understanding of the way in which the Canadian wheat trade emerged and evolved in a complicated and shifting world. It adds much to our understanding of what was once, as the title indicates, “king” of Canadian exports.
That being said, I have a few criticisms. The book’s title and contents reflect a degree of uncertainty about the real focus of the work. The title implies a focus on the Canada–UK grain trade, which is important, but the book is also about the international grain trade and Canada’s place in it. The introduction states that the book will focus on the CWB (3), but discussion of the CWB, though significant, does not dominate the book. This book is really about changing food regimes and the way in which Canada’s wheat trade has been situated within them. Those food regimes are what structure the book and what have shaped changes over time.
There are also points of redundancy. The introduction sets out the chapters in summary form, and the conclusion once again summarizes the chapters before adding some comments on the likely future of the trade. It might have been useful had Magnan spent more time on two themes that are touched on only as background. The first is the role of political power and ideology in the whole picture. The way in which political parties in both the UK and Canada responded to concerns about agriculture and food would have provided a further understanding of the evolution of the various food regimes. It is striking, for instance, that the Progressive party is not even mentioned, though it is the ultimate expression of farm discontent in the years after World War I. Also, more time might have been spent on US policy. Magnan asserts that after 1945, the USA was a hegemonic power in agricultural trade (as in many other areas). Given that, a chapter on post-1945 US policy and the Canadian government response would have added to the book.
These relatively minor criticisms aside, this is a useful and insightful work that allows a greater understanding of the international context in which the Canadian wheat system of trade worked and evolved over more than a century.