Prime Minster Stephen Harper said the government will be granting pardons to farmers who were convicted for challenging a law requiring them to sell their grain through the Canadian Wheat Board.

Harper made the announcement at a farm in Kindersley, Sask. Wednesday, the day a new law came into effect ending the board’s monopoly on western wheat and barley sales.

The farmers, part of a group called Farmers for Justice, had been convicted of taking their grain across the U.S. border. Others had their vehicles or equipment seized at the border.

“Their acts were purely symbolic of course,” Harper told a gathered crowd. Sometimes “just a few loads of grain were driven across the border. Sometimes, just a token shaft of wheat in the back of a pick-up truck.”

Harper said he was granting the pardon under a rarely invoked power.

“To the authority of the Crown falls an ancient power; the Royal Prerogative of Mercy,” Harper said.

“It is a rare and significant thing for this power to be exercised. But ladies and gentlemen, today I am pleased to announce it will be exercised. The group of farmers convicted under the old unjust legislation of the Wheat Board monopoly will be pardoned by the government.”

The law ending the board’s monopoly on western wheat and barley sales was passed late last year, and allows western farmers to market and sell their grain to whomever they choose.

Under the new legislation, farmers can still market their grain through the board, but it’s no longer mandatory. Western wheat and barley farmers have had to sell grain through the Canadian Wheat Board since the 1940s.

On Wednesday, the federal government was celebrating what it called grain marketing freedom day, hailed by the prime minster as “a great day for Western Canadian farmers.”

Harper said the changes mean the government “has simply given to western Canadian grain farmers the exact same freedom that already belongs to similar farmers in the rest of this country.”

Wednesday marked more than the end of the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly over western wheat and grain. Board officials also kicked off the new crop year by inking a deal with one of the nation’s largest grain companies.

Winnipeg-based agribusiness Richardson International announced Wednesday that it has agreed to accept grain deliveries from farmers with wheat board contracts at all of its locations.

Richardson International President Curt Vossen said in a statement that the company was pleased to “provide farmers with flexible marketing options -- whether they are marketing their grain through the (wheat board) or working with Richardson directly to sell their product.”

Wheat board president Ian White was similarly optimistic, noting the deal has secured more than 170 locations in western Canada where farmers can deliver grain to the board.

“Our network of delivery locations for CWB grain has expanded to include the vast majority of elevators in Western Canada," White said in a statement issued Wednesday. "Farmers can sign CWB contracts, confident that they can deliver grain to a country location nearby.”

With files from The Canadian Press