Thank you for your kudos at the opening there, Mr. Storseth. I guess I'd point to the fact that I have a great department around me. The folks you see here today are only the tip of the iceberg. They're all anxious to build a stronger industry. We're working ahead, we're redefining programs, we're adjusting parameters of programs to make sure they hit the target.
There's a lot of talk, and Mr. Easter brought this up, that there's less money than there was before and all that. It's because the marketplace is working. Farmers would far rather farm for the marketplace than farm for the mailbox. I guess that's the biggest difference. When the marketplace is working properly, farmers take that, they buy new equipment, they make those decisions they need to make because they know the market is there to support their movements. That's what this department has been so bullish about.
On the Wheat Board, we've never been shy in the last number of elections in western Canada—where the Wheat Board, of course, is predominant—about talking about changes to the Wheat Board, that it has to get up to speed, that it is mired in the past, it's not developing programs that the farmers feel are useful. Even with what they've been bringing forward to try to offset some of that, farmers are still not buying into them in any fulsome way. We've seen their market share deteriorate. Even with today's values of commodities, their market share is way off. We're looking at an industry that can't adapt or be flexible enough to the market signals that are out there.
So we've asked them to change. We did that through a plebiscite. In western Canada, 62% of farmers said they wanted a change. You can add the numbers up any way you want, but 37% said, no, leave it exactly like it is. That number has now shrunk to half. In our polling, in my discussions with producers, in your own consultations with your growers, that's what we're hearing. And the board's own polling is reinforcing that. They're getting those numbers as well. They have to be, because they're talking to the same people we are. We know that demand is out there.
The board is trying to adjust to those new realities, but they're still locked in on this single-desk idea, which no longer flies. We've seen other commodities go through the roof. We saw even the Wheat Board commodities' price spikes this year that were unbelievable, and we're hoping they were able to capture those. We won't know until the final payments come out almost a year from now. We'll be able to assess it at that point. We know there are some problems with the contingency fund, that they've had troubles keeping up with the marketplace, and we'll have to address those.
I had a meeting as late as Tuesday lunch with Larry Hill and Ian White, after they met the committee here talking about the next steps forward. I've given them some direction. We're keeping it out of the media because we've found over the years that we've gotten further dealing directly than we have running it through the media filter--no insult to my media friends here at the table. But we have to get this done. Farmers are demanding it. The Wheat Board understands that. It's a matter of how we get there. I will be attending their meeting coming up at the end of this month, to continue these discussions. We'll try to come up with programming that will address that barley freedom for this crop year.