Step right up!

[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.

[vagabonddreamer]

absolultely GF...the only reason i laud them is because they are passionate about SOMETHING...our society is fast becoming apathetic and it is just plain GOOD to see people fired up...we are allowed checks and balances in our political system...as soon as we dont USE them...we will LOSE them...

i agree on it being a vocal minority..but...if they keep politicizing the way they are...they may get more broad based support...whether it is a good or bad thing to disband the CWB doesnt really matter in my eyes..what matters..is that through non violent means...the canadian public should be able to effect change in any direction they chose...there may be consequences...but they should still have that right to make mistakes..or improve things depending on your outlook...

the checkoff thing is very similar...once enough cowboys...get in the saddle and start (figuratively) shooting their six guns...they will take the industry in any direction they want...remember...it seems that it is a vocal minority on the cattle side that are complaining about checkoffs and their subsequent use...dont hear a MAJORITY complaining at THIS point...but who knows...vs

[kato]

What a terrific thread this has turned into.

I guess I'm showing my age here, but we've been in this business long enough to see virtually everything solid that we had behind us when we started dismantled one item by one.

I agree with that now famous report that it pretty much started with the signing of NAFTA. When we started farming we could actually see five different grain elevators by standing at the end our driveway. They were every direction, and all within five miles of us. Now our neighbours all have to hire semi's to haul their grain either fifteen or forty miles away to a choice of two. For a small operator, it's just not feasable to be in the grain business any more just due to the fact that you can't even make up a load of grain. I was on the last board of the local MB Pool Elevator before they disbanded them, and boy, did we get the hype over how the industry needed to streamline, and needed the economy of scale to stay in business. Note that this was the same time the pools were being transformed into publicly traded companies.

What was the result of this? Now you haul your grain many miles, AT YOUR OWN EXPENSE, and your rail freight rates remain unchanged. In fact they've been gouging on those as well. All this did was transfer a good part of the cost of shipping grain directly to the grain producer, and it was done with hardly a whimper.

This is the agenda of big business. Divide and conquer, and it shall all be yours one day. They've done it to the cattle producer too as we all know far too well.

Every number of years agriculture seems to hit a crisis where producers either have to step up and work together, or sit back and live with the consequences. The cattle business is there right now, and the grain business is not far behind. Last year's terrific prices covered up the situation a bit, but they had a short life, and who knows when they'll be back. For now it's back to business with lower returns and high inputs yet again.

This kind of thing is what brought about the Prairie Pools in the first place, as well as the marketing boards. They didn't just happen for the fun of it, and we all need to remember that. History ignored is bound to be repeated.