CANADIAN WHEAT

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 107, 2 November 1926, Page 9

CANADIAN WHEAT

CO-OPERATIVE CONTROL

A HUGE ORGANISATION.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

VANCOUVER, 3rd October

The farmers of Western Canada have, within three years, established the largest co-operative organisation1 of its kind in the world, and the United States Government is sending a delegation o£ experts to study its methods, owing to the demand for better means of marketing primary produce in the Republic. The Canadian Wheat Pool, with its three units iv the provinces o£ Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, now has a total membership of 125,000, who control 13,200,000 of the 21,000,000 acres sown to wheat last year. Alberta formed the first pool in 1924, and in the first season secured to its members two million dollars more than were the pool not in operation. Then followed the other two provinces, and the three merged at once into one organisation, known as "The Canadian Co-operative Wheat Producers, Limited," with headquarters at Winnipeg. The pool is incorporated under Federal charter, and takes delivery of the wheat from each, of the provincial pools, placing it on the markets of the world in such manner as to secure a price commensurate with the natural law of supply and demand. It is controlled by a board of nine directors, with a president and vicepresident. It lias established selling agencies in fifty-one ports in various parts of the world. The pool is operating on the same principle as the export control boards of New Zealand, in preventing large volumes of produce being rushed on to the market, thereby creating a glut. The- organisation. is simple. Each of the three provinces is divided into seven districts, each in turn sub-divided into ten sub-districts, making seventy, all told. Representatives arc chosen by vote of the sub-district. Delegates then meet in seven groups of ten cadi, and elect a director, and the seven directors constitute the provincial board. Directors may be recalled on a petition of at least 15 per cent, of members of any sub-district or | district. Payment for wheat is made by the pool to its members at an initial price at the time of delivery, as is done in New South Wales, with a final clearance at i the close of the crop year. Where practicable, however, the directors are authorised to make interim payment. The I pool has purchased the elevators of other farmers' organisations. The Saskatchewan Pool purchased 451 elevators. Manitoba Pool is building 100 new elevators, and Alberta has bought in a large ram- I ber, and is going on with, new construction. Members join under long-term contracts, averaging five years. Membership fee is , three dollars, one dollar being for capital share, and two for organisation.

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