Flax Conference Call

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NOTICE OF CONFERENCE CALL

February 1, 2010 1:00pm.
February 2, 2010 1:00pm

Join in on a free Triffid conference call.

1. Call 1-800-610-9767
2. Inform the operator you wish to participate in the "Flax Industry Update Call."

3. Everyone welcome.

4. Participants: Flax Council of Canada, seed testing labs, Sask Ag, and Viterra

You will have the opportunity to ask questions

[Gerald_sk]

What is the tie between Flax Grower Association and Viterra. Seem
like Viterra, which is not a big player in the flax market, what to
tie up the growers to them and force a lot of the smaller players
that are interested in marketing flax out of the market.

Seems like Canola all over again, where the Association and
industry worked together to force all the small seed producers
out and increase price for 1 to 10 dollars/lb.

[dave4441]

I agree with part of what you are saying, but Viterra is the main buyer of flax in the CDN market. They are the only significant bulk conventional shipper out of ThunderBay to Europe since the Agricore merger. Someone correct me if i am wrong, but this is how i see it. Viterra is continueing it's push to "farm the farmer". That i agree with. Certified seed is in their best interest (and could be argued the industries best interest). Why not have a company like SGS sample (on-farm) and submit the growers common seed for testing. This would also provide traceability and 3rd party neutrality and ensure that seed is tested and Triffid free????? has anyone discussed this????? Growers may not like testing costs,but i think we are going to have to buck up and pay irregardless of whose fault this is. If the customer demands it and is the main customer, we can argue all day long that it is BS, but does not help us in the end.

The whole idea that a grower must be able to provide a seed cert may be what Viterra demands of the europe flax business, but there is a lot of smaller buyers and crushers that will likely deal with someone to ship containers to other markets,etc, by testing at harvest, or in some markets, with no testing at all. Not sure how the industry could force anyone to used cert seed. Problem could be that you limit your # of buyers. Kinda getting off topic, but is my opinion.

[Gerald_sk]

Wonder it that statement is from them or real facts. In this area they are
generally 50 cents or more below other buyers. Local elevator will not even
buy flax. I would never sign a must deliver flax contract with that group

[oneoff]

I hear today that the format to "participate" means "listen only".