WINNIPEG - Prairie farmers have voted in favour of the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly over wheat and barley sales.

Just over 60 per cent of wheat growers and 51 per cent of barley growers voted in favour of maintaining the board's monopoly. Some 55 per cent of wheat growers and 47 per cent of barley growers voted in the plebiscite.

The board conducted a plebiscite after federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz refused to hold one as required under the Canadian Wheat Board Act.

Ritz has said he will change the law and eliminate the monopoly, although the board would still exist.

"In an open market, every farmer will have the ability to choose how to market their grain, whether it’s individually or through a voluntary pooling entity," he said in emailed comments Friday before he knew the plebiscite result.

"Let me repeat – regardless of the plebiscite results – at the end of the day, every farmer will have the right to choose how they market their grain."

Ritz has the support of provincial governments in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The Winnipeg-based wheat board has the support of the Manitoba government, which believes farmers have the legal right to decide the marketing agency's future.

Legislation creating the board dates back to 1935. The monopoly over wheat came into effect in 1943. Barley and oats were added a few years later.

Oats were removed by a previous Conservative government in 1989, but barley and wheat exports and domestic sales for human consumption remain under board control.

Ritz has said the single desk must go if Canada's wheat growers are going to achieve their full potential. He believes farmers should be able to choose to whom they want to sell.

"The monopoly of the wheat board is standing in the way," he said. "What was once Canada's signature crop has fallen behind."

Although Ritz has support from three of the four provinces where the board operates, he faces another hurdle as well. A group called Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board has taken the minister to the Federal Court of Canada.

The group argues he has to abide by the legislation and was legally bound to allow farmers a vote before tampering with the monopoly.

On Friday, the head clerk of the court decided the group's request for a judicial review would proceed to a full court hearing.

Group spokesman Lyle Simonson had already indicated the group was prepared to push for the court case to go ahead regardless of the plebiscite's outcome.

"That really is independent of what the wheat board was doing because it pertains to the federal act as it is written," said Simonson, who farms near Swift Current, Sask. "It doesn't really matter what happens with the plebiscite."

Some farm groups, including the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association and Western Barley Growers Association, also want the minister to plow ahead.

"The entire design of this vote was geared toward producing a result in favour of the monopoly," says Kevin Bender, president of the Wheat Growers. "The government should ignore the results and move full steam ahead with plans to give us our marketing freedom."

The board is definitely big business. It's the largest single marketer of wheat and barley in the world and this year paid farmers about $5.8 billion for the grain it sold on their behalf.

But it has few tangible assets. The board doesn't own grain elevators or port terminals, although it has announced it is buying a couple of ships. It has its own building — a grey stone edifice in Winnipeg at 423 Main St.

Its main "asset" has been a guaranteed supply of all the wheat and barley grown in Western Canada that is exported or sold for human consumption — think bread, pasta and beer. Unless farmers want to feed their grain to livestock, it goes through the board.

The board and its supporters say it won't make sense for the agency to continue without a monopoly. For them, it's an either-or proposition, which was reflected in the wording of the plebiscite.

Ritz and the anti-monopoly forces insist the board can continue on a voluntary basis.

The monopoly has long been a target of Conservatives and their supporters. They failed in a bid in 2007 to unilaterally remove barley from the board's control when Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board challenged then-agriculture minister Chuck Strahl’s plan to do it with a cabinet order. Federal Court ruled the government didn't have the legal right to do that.

And despite suggestions of widespread producer support for getting rid of it, a solid majority of farmer-directors elected across the West have always backed the monopoly. But Ritz says farmers essentially backed his decision when a majority Conservative government was elected in May.

Scott Edmonds, The Canadian Press