Just for you three amigos Agstar and Burbert, cchurch.

[LWeber]

"He's usually careful with his words."
_______________________________________

LOL.... since when...ffs

That's a good one. What's next?

Pointy hats and burned crosses.
______________________________

Great debate.

Even Parsley using the jail card.

While I will never downplay the few who sacrificed, I'll say like Chaff: How's that argument working for you so far?

It has been 7 years. What has changed?

Spending time on a combine allowed for some free time to think.

It was a DeBeer's wire on my Bloomberg service that started this for me just before I left to get on a combine Wednesday.

Rough diamonds are up 50% this year because DeBeer's cut production 91%.

How many of DeBeer's customer's do you think have optional origin contracts? I'd bet none.

Between the CWB, grain companies, TEU's, RR's and Gov't, the old adage that everything that goes around, comes around is happening right before your eyes.

How long did it take to shake the fuedal system - because if farmers don't stop this dive - that's where it is headed.

Farmers are getting pitted against each other and it is happening more and more each day. Not just here - worldwide.

Every farmers need to ask himself/herself:

Where is my optional origin?

And if you don't figure it out soon - serf's up won't occur just during vacation. Spelling and pun intended.

[chaffmeister]

Parsley -

Funny how you thought “money” when I talked about giving and getting…

[parsley]

Money: Farmgate returns formed the basis for the reason I posted.

Optional origin sales: I am very exhilerated about the prospect of some meeting being called by somebody somewhere to discuss "optional origin sales", preferrably right before an election, and forming a committee representing both industry and farmers, and asking say, the provincial governments for funding to hold them in some remote boardroom, and then sending the decisions to the Government, waiting for a reply. Say, a three year plan. Call it Project 2013

I'm going to have to start combining again, so I can be a bit more introspective, so that I become better informed about past successes.

Yes, I must leave it to the people who "understand" what is best for farmers. Lawsey. What was I thinking!

I can't wait for 2013.
Tongue in Cheek of a Witch

[TOM4CWB]

cchurch;

You said: 'That article from USWA wouldn't even pass as an urban legend.'

That is an interesting comment! Because it (USW the article) is logical, truthful, and bugs you... hurts your feelings and pricks your ideals...

Glad you posted here cchurch...

Denile isn't just a river in Egypt... it is running through the western Canada 'designated area'... from the CWB propaganda machine at the headwaters!.

Seldom has a better opportunity been offered... to prove the CWB 'monopoly' is only in practice a function of 'command and control' that more often than not hurts those it was supposed to help. Unintended consequences... and substitution... plague the CWB 'single minded' view of marketing.

It is possible that the CWB does make reasonable decisions... from time to time... it is appreciated when this happens!

An open mind... feeds the winds of prosperity!

History does repeat itself... and self serving gov. institutions trend towards building themselves job security...(and justification for their existance and legislation) rather than prosperity for those they theoretically were supposed to serve!

cchurch... Canola has no monopoly... and is a much healthier marketing system than CWB board grains. Farmers globally prove there market power... in a transparent Canola marketing structure. It is not perfect... but at least we know what is driving our customers.. what they need... and what they need us to produce!

[chaffmeister]

Sarcasm: intellect on the offensive.

(Also, the lowest form of wit.)

[parsley]

chaff, at 1:49AM that's about as much wit or sarcasm or keyed finger movement as I have left to muster. LOL

We know what needs changing. I think we're all frustrated about how to bring about that change.

And farmers more than most.

[agstar77]

Who are we exporting grain for, railways, multinationals, chemical companies etc? Maybe it's time to examine the basic assumption that we should export to feed the world at our expense. Stop fighting among ourselves about how we market our product and ask the basic question of why and how much we should grow?

[parsley]

You mean ask the specialists who doled out wheat quota for fifty years?

[ado089]

The concept is sound the implementation is corrupt. First off, a monkey with an etch-a-sketch could do better job of managing the CWB. As a result the board see's them selfs as a buying monopoly instead of selling titan. What am I doing? One voice, one vote. So the best I can do is share ideas, have intelegent conversation and try to convince people that their neighbor down the road is not the competition, the subsidized wheat grower in the US and EU are, the multi-national backed slash and burn farmers in south america are, the government funded farmers in china are, so that we can at least start to look like a cohesive group so that we are taken seriously by government and buisness. At the end of the day if the board is scrapped there will be about six grain co.'s fighting not to purchase our grain a higher price but to sell it at a lower price. Since we'e dumb enough to pay freight and handling to port that's where they make their money, trading margin is just gravy.

[chaffmeister]

This is our problem. Too many people think like ado:

“At the end of the day if the board is scrapped there will be about six grain co.'s fighting not to purchase our grain a higher price but to sell it at a lower price.”

When you have choices, who do you sell to? The one who pays more or less?

If you’re one of those six grain companies, why would you sell anything at a lower price than the other five? If you do, the price you offer to farmers will be lower than the others. How would you be able to buy anything and still make money?

[chaffmeister]

And ado – why do you think you’re dumb to pay freight and handling to port? How else would you get your grain to customers?

[ado089]

Chaff,
Who paid the shipping on the last vehicle you bought, how about that last load of fertilizer you bought or the computer you're typing on? You did. You purchased them from a place of buisness and brought them home. I don't know about you but my place of buisness is battleford, saskatchewan not vancouver, british columbia.

You also have no idea how the grain industry works. All the companies tender out shipments of grain to buyers. The lowest tender that meets the desired requirements win the tender and the right to deliver on that contract, they then go and procure grain from you and I at that new and improved lower price to fill said contract. Since there's always a few of the 200,000 farmers out there that need money they obtain that grain at pretty much the lowest price they can get away with before no one will deliver. So please correct my flawed thinking on how having six more organizations out there trying to low ball each other is going to be better for my bottom line than just one.

[ado089]

When it comes to grain we are suppliers not customers and anyone in buisness knows that you grind your supplier to reduce costs and increase margins.

[chaffmeister]

So you think a better system would be to have offshore buyers pay you a price FOB Battleford?

Are you suggesting they pay the same price in Battleford as in Vancouver?

Or are you saying they should write you a cheque and come and pick it up - that way they're paying for the freight?

If the CWB sells wheat to China (as if) on a FOB Vancouver basis (picked up in Vancouver), who's paying for the freight? You or the buyer? Does it matter?

[ado089]

Your response show just how conditioned you are to the current system and exactly why you'd get eaten alive in an open market situation. I don't sell my grain to a buyer in family in China or a flour mill in Italy or brewery in St. Louis. I sell my my grain to a grain company or the wheat board, they then sell it to someone else, who sells it to someone else. This concept of being charged for freight, elevation, handling, cleaning and so on until it's processed or consumed is as absurd as you sending Agrium a bill for trucking and the fuel for you auger and rent on the bin, or sending Bayer a bill for seeding their canola. When my grain hits the pit in the elevator that should be the end of my ownership of that grain, from that point forward it's no longer my problem. We've all been trained to beleive it's our grain until it reaches the consumer since british north america act. Step back and look at this situation from a striclty buisness perspective, we let ourselves get nickle and dimed out all our profit and we are still just price takers at the end of the day. Only in agriculture.