Step right up!

[silverback]

I'm not sure if you cowboys have been reading the commodity forum so I am posting an invitation to go and read what's going on.

An even better read might be Parsley's Notebook.

I invite you all to read about the great benefit our "single desk" marketer has achieved for wheat and malt barley growers over the past few years.

We have a central purchasing agency who gets to decide on the price they will sell farmers produce at and then deduct their salaries and costs and then dole out the remainder to the growers of that product.

Now we are learning of the ways they have been speculating in the futures markets without adequate protection for downside risk.

Doesn't that sound like a good idea for the cattle industry too?

What would this industry say if a central agency lost tens of millions of dollars pricing "your" cattle?

How about this? Lets say that the market for cattle goes up by 50% for a couple of months. Some farms book their cattle in. Some don't because they believe the average price will rise because of the rising market so they will wait. The prices start falling back. What do the central marketers do? They close out the farmers who made a choice to wait to "protect" those farmers who booked in at the higher price to protect how the pooled price will look.

Sounds good eh?

[grassfarmer]

So are you teaming up with R-CALF to destroy the CWB?? ;o)

[perfecho]

"What would this industry say if a central agency lost tens of millions of dollars pricing "your" cattle? "

It already has.....due to lack of competition as well!

[silverback]

I think I just read an article that is telling me that the NFU is interested in teaming up with RCalf themselves grassy.

(I will say that I agree with some of your efforts towards the issue of packer involvement).

But, tell me do rcalf's efforts to restrict Canadian cattle from going south not coincide with the nfu's ideas of supply management to cap Canadian production to match Canadian consumption?

[grassfarmer]

I guess my post went over your head Silverback?
Try reading the NFU press release that I posted yesterday on the thread below and you will see what I was alluding to.

[kato]

Whether you like the CWB or not, there is one thing about it that we would love to have in the cattle business. That it is a producer driven organization with enough power to actually do something to stop the total corporate takeover of our industry.

Like it or not, the CWB is probably the one thing left that stands between Canadian grain growers and the corporate muscle south of the border that's just raring to get at it and take over the Canadian grain industry like they have taken over the beef industry.

And guess what? It's some of the very same corporations. Surprise surprise! Why do you think they want the wheat board gone? Not for the good of producers, that's for sure. They want to be allowed to run rampant and plunder you guys like they did to us.

So before killing the CWB, grain growers should take a good long look at the state of the cattle industry in this country, and the problems we live with. We are a good example of what happens when big business is given free reins to do what they like with an industry populated by small independent operators.

And ask a few questions. Like, exactly who is driving this "kill the CWB" campaign? Is it really independent farmers? Or is it big agribusiness looking for opportunity and promoting the idea by influencing farmers? Always find the motives behind movements before you jump on board, especially when there is so much at stake.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is so much to lose that you can never get back. Please learn by what has happened to us.

Before it's too late.

[grassfarmer]

LOL, Kato I think you just precipitated an invasion of the anti-cwb cyber-bullies.

Of course you are right though, a marketing board offers individual producers leverage and protection when dealing with the corporations in the handling, processing and retailing operations.

[kato]

They won't invade here. I (probably a dumb thing) posted it in commodities too. LOL

[vagabonddreamer]

LMAO at Kato...i have been following the Commodity page for a while...when i saw your post...i had to secretly and inwardly laugh...to say there are POLAR opposites when it comes to the CWB...would be a mild understatement...

no worries if TOM4CWB or Francisco follow you here...i got a couple 'piggin strings handy...we will keep them off your backside...vs

[silverback]

Can any of you geniuses explain what is so hilarious that ALL grain farmers who grow wheat or malt lost hundreds of millions of dollars due to the people who run the marketing department of our central marketing agency ? ? ? They lost it speculating in the futures market.

Do you have such little respect for your neighbors that you think it's funny ?

When did you lose the respect for the word FREEDOM ?

The wheat board is not a voluntary little co-op. It is enforced with jail time. Pretty funny.

And these big evil corporations, well it just so happens they get paid more for handling wheat and malt than anything else. Hilarious. They are definately not advocating that farmers get rid of it.

Now go out and ask for the government to set up your own little canadian cattle board so you can pool all your cattle prices together. It will be mandatory of course and you don't get to decide what price you want to take.

[kato]

OK I'll take the bait.

For a start, we don't think anything is hilarious.

Are there any farmers this year who did not lose money in the market themselves? I know my brother in law for one sat on a whole crop of canola and didn't price it, and then watched it tank. He should have known better too, since he also works for a grain company and had every opportunity in the world. These things happen all the time.

I'm not saying anything either way about the CWB, except that the decision to dump it is probably the most irreversible decision that grain farmers will ever make. Once gone it will never return. No going back. Permanent.

I'm also saying that before dumping it, look at how we're all doing dealing with some of the same big international corporations that would be running the grain markets in a non CWB world.

We're not having any fun.........

[silverback]

You just hit the nail on the head Kato.

There are many of us who right now would wish for the independent auditors to be brought in and after they figure out who screwed up we padlock the doors and put them all on EI.

However, there are many, many more who do not want to end the board, they only want it to compete as any other grain broker/ trader does.

So tell me, why is it that after all the promotion money and time spent telling us how good a job they do in brokering the best price for wheat and malt growers, they then turn around and say they cannot compete with a voluntary cwb ?

We have heard for decades that they get us "premium prices". With the head start they supposedly have on everyone else they should be able to maintain their premium prices. No?

They are only brokers.

500 employees to handle the paperwork for Western Canadian Grain.

How many employees do you think it would take to find a market for all the cattle in these 3 provinces ?

If you are going to caution grain growers about getting rid of a mandatory, legislated, government run monopoly, then I will caution you and your cowboys about going down the road to creating one.

[vagabonddreamer]

ahhhh...silverback...i neglected to include you in the ranks of the famous...or should i say IN-famous...

absolutely NOBODY in agriculture thinks ANY of this is hillarious...

to be honest with you...i have a ton of respect for you guys for fighting in what you believe...there are always two sides to a "socialist" type issue like this...and it seems...that just like unions...marketing boards have a time and place where they are effective...but they become fat and lazy eventually...and lose sight of their mandate...it IS possible that some sort of marketing board COULD (and i stress "could") be effective for cattlemen...and be mutually exclusive of the problems seen with the CWB...and in your defense..the CWB may have reached that "bottom of the top"...

my respect extends to all of you because you have reached the point where you are motivated enough to organize and DO something about it...and in an ironic sort of way...maybe while you are throwing YOUR marketing board out...the cattlement will be forming one...i dont know if it is the answer...everything is TOO dynamic right now...from weather to business..to be CERTAIN of anything...it IS a democracy...and like it as not...the single desk WAS voted back in...so i gotta respect whoever does the lobbying for the CWB as well..they did a great job...even YOU have to admit that...

there are some brilliant people on the beef side of things...many contribute here on the boards...GF...FS...Kato...Willowsprings...SMc...it will be interesting...to see how long it takes cattlemen to become as politically "solvent" as you plowboys...

in the meanwhile...it IS great entertainment...to read the antics on the commodity side...i tend to try and laugh quite a bit at life right now...because if i dont...it gets to me...so...i am not laughing AT you..i am laughing WITH you...vs

[grassfarmer]

vagabonddreamer, I don't think you need to go overboard congratulating grain farmers for being galvanized for change. As you rightly said later farmers just recently voted, with an increased majority, to retain the CWB. What we see on the commodity board is the vocal minority who oppose the CWB. In reality they aren't a lot different to beef producers who are trying to change the status quo with regard to ABP/CCA. One big difference is that the grain producers are allowed to vote on their futures and the CWB - we have called for a plebescite on the checkoff issue and been refused that right time and again.

I personally don't believe some of the commodity board vocal minority have any idea of what they are getting into in the real world. To believe that a few prairie farmers working independently will be able to market their grain around the world and get the top price every time is a dream. Several of them can't even spell simple words for crying out loud! Then there are the element that speculate they can be world beaters because they can pull up spot prices from the northern US states on their computers that are sometimes higher than here and call that a marketing strategy. Ignores the fact that what? - 1% of the Cdn crop goes into these northern tier states?

I've posted many times but will post again the experience a lot of my friends in Scotland went through with the removal of the milk marketing boards there. Around 1990 liquid milk price was @21-22 pence per litre. There was a move by some, mainly younger, over-borrowed producers to sweep away the milk boards that had marketed their milk since the 1930s. This campaign was aided and abetted by the milk processing companies who even offered premium prices (@25ppl) to producers who would break ranks and campaign for an end to the boards. They were promised this higher price once the boards were done away with. Eventually the boards were removed - and the troubles began. Between deregulation in the early 1990s and summer 2007 the farm gate milk price dropped from 22ppl to 16ppl. Looking back the producers were tricked - sure they got a few months at the 25ppl price but they got 15 years where the price decreased from 22ppl to 16ppl at a time where input costs rose hugely.
Surprise, surprise the producers are now re-forming Coops to regain the marketing strength their grandfathers knew they needed in the 1930s. I don't think the CWB issue is much different to this. Sure, there may be cause to make the CWB work better, there is room for that in most organizations, but to remove it would be a costly and wrong decision.

[Sawbones]

Once again I'd like to bring up Darrin Qualman's report on the Crisis in Agriculture. I'm not going to refer to it as the NFU report I do not agree with many of the solutions and direction that have been proposed by the NFU
"There is no free market!!"
Wall Street was taken down by corporate greed and we are seeing the destruction of the beef industry in Canada as a result of that same greed.
We're dealing with corporate bullies who are demanding our lunch. What we are talking about with these marketing strategies is how to save some of our lunch without addressing those corporate bullies. It's time we got together and told them we don't want to play their silly games. The basis created by COOL is going directly into their pockets.