When Wheat Was King

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.

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. - James Murton, Associate Professor of History at Nipissing University (NICHE) 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.- Doug Owram, Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia (International Journal) 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.- Laura Larsen, Department of History, University of Saskatchewan (Great Plains Research) 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. - Mathew J. Bellamy, Carleton University (The Prospectus)

• Introduction1 Forging the Canada-UK Wheat Trade: Experimentation and Crisis, 1870-19452 Regulating the Wheat Sector: Consensus and Contradiction, 1945-953 Reinventing Industrial Bread: Wheat as Food Commodity and Premium Product, 1995-4 Transforming the Wheat Sector: Conflicts over the Canadian Wheat Board, GM Wheat, and Local Bread, 1995-ConclusionNotes; References; Index