Abstract

For about 70 years, the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) was one of the world's largest export "single desk" state traders in agriculture, until it was deregulated in 2012 and stripped of its marketing powers. One of the main crops controlled by the CWB was barley. We estimate the impact of the removal of the CWB's single desk on the spatial pattern of malting barley production in Western Canada. We find that deregulation encouraged growers located closer to malt barley processing plants to increase production relative to growers located further from the plants. This change in cropping patterns after deregulation can be explained by efficiency gains, combined with transportation and handling cost savings. Resume Deregulation et specialisation regionale : l'exemple de l'agriculture canadienne. Pendant pres de soixante-dix ans, la Commission canadienne du ble (CCB) representa l'un des plus grands guichets uniques monopolistiques de negoce agricole dans le monde jusqu'a sa dereglementation en 2012, date a laquelle elle perdit toutes ses prerogatives commerciales. L'une des principales cultures controlees par la CCB etait l'orge. Nous avons evalue l'impact de la suppression du guichet unique de la CCB sur la distribution geographique de la production d'orge de brasserie dans l'Ouest canadien. Consecutivement a la dereglementation, nous avons remarque que plus les producteurs etaient situes a proximite des usines de transformation d'orge brassicole, plus ils augmentaient leur production. Ce changement dans le systeme de culture, posterieur a la dereglementation, peut s'expliquer par des gains en efficacite ainsi que des economies en matiere de couts de transport et de manutention.

Published in

Canadian Journal of Economics / Revue Canadienne d'Économique
2019, Volume: 52, number: 4, pages: 1497-1522
Publisher: WILEY

SLU Authors

• Ferguson, Shon

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Research Institute of Industrial Economics

UKÄ Subject classification

Economics


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/caje.12411

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/102777