Over the course of a century, the Canadian Prairies went from being the breadbasket of the world to but one of many grain-growing regions in a vast global agri-food system. When Wheat Was King traces the causes and consequences of this evolution, from the first transatlantic shipments to the controversial dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board.

The story begins in the settlement period, when farmers came up against forces outside their control – world prices, unpredictable weather, powerful banks, and the emergence of a global grain trade. In response, Canadian governments created a central system for grain pooling, quality control, and collective marketing. In the postwar period, however, US priorities shaped a new food regime, and in the years that followed, the wheat trade faced the liberalization of global markets and the consolidation of corporate power.

This ambitious look at how farmers, consumers, the state, and markets coalesced in the production, distribution, and consumption of food in the Canadian-UK grain trade offers keen insights into how regional and international politics influence agriculture and food industries in Canada, the UK, and around the world.

André Magnan's profile page

André Magnan is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Studies at the University of Regina, Canada. His research examines the political economy of regional and global food systems, focusing on the history of politics of grain marketing, the financialization of agriculture, and changing patterns of farm ownership and control.

Over the course of its history the CWB functioned as an effective government agency in the market economy. Time and again, it reinvented itself in response to changing global political and economic conditions in order to promote and protect the interests of prairie wheat farmers. Magnan’s scholarly study thus lends further support to the position that government action has made the nation economically stronger, and not weaker, than nature had intended.

The Prospectus

This book provides one of the better overviews of the last 30 years of grain marketing policy on the Canadian prairies and highlights how these domestic policies were the result of not just internal social changes, but were also affected by the place of Canadian grain in the international market … Magnan makes a strong case that prairie agricultural policy cannot be understood in isolation from the market the prairies served.

Great Plains Research

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.

International Journal

In his careful scholarly way, [Magnan] paints a picture of a large government bureaucracy that re-invents itself at crucial points, responding to changes in global political-economy while keeping the interests of Canadian farmers front-and-centre. In the age of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, Magnan’s subtle, indirect—and so convincing and authoritative—defense of the role of government in a market economy may be this book’s most important legacy.

NICHE