Who owns Port Facilities/Export Terminals

[malleefarmer]

Who owns the ports and export facilities in canada?
Here in South Australia, viterra do who got them when they took over ABB grain.

Despite deregulated market it is basically a regional monoloply as they own the ports and can charge other exporters what they want to use them and or make life as difficult or as easy for them as they choose.

It used to be farmer owned but alas farmers took the money and ran and sold to ABB who in turn got taken over by vitterra, its not healthy.

If anyone looks at vitteras profit most of it comes through the australian aquisition.

[charliep]

Terminal facilities at port are owned by private grain companies (including
Viterra). The only exception is Prince Rupert which is a consortium which
includes government investment (province of Alberta for sure and
Saskatchewan I think).

[charliep]

More information than you likely wanted but below is a Canadian Grain Commission list of licensed grain
companies. The group you are looking for is terminals. Some of the names are individual grain companies.
Others are consortiums of several.

[URL="http://www.grainscanada.gc.ca/licensee-licence/licensed-agreees-eng.htm"]licenced elevators[/URL]

Defin

[Burbert]

We should sell our interests in facilities and terminals, here in Kanada too. Level the playing field with Oz, then we too, could be further behind the 8 ball. Come on Angrybusiness do your worst, we farmers kin take, it, off load it all, I say. Drive grain prices down to 1 penny per bushel, then we'll all truly be happy out on the farm!!!!!!!!!!!!

[dave4441]

Burbert-why is the US system generally considered lower cost and more efficent then? I realize you will not answer this question but instead focus your time talking like a 3 yr old.

[redleaf]

Well I don't want to start a pssing contest here because I am certainly not an expert on the subject,(perhaps Charlie could offer some expertise), but could it be that the american system is considered more effecient because many costs of barging grain on the mississipi and in the north west are born by the taxpayer through extensive use of the us army corp of engineers?

[dave4441]

that is part of it, but the CWB is a license to print money for the line cos, look at the cost for elevation and storage. It is nuts.

[cityguy]

US system is a blow and go #2 YC / #2 YSB / #2 SRW / #2 HRW ords type system with not a lot of seperations wanted or needed. there will be some IP type stuff but by and large it's not that complicated. The more complicated stuff like spring wheat is a very small part of the system. It's also a system that can essentially take in half the crop at harvest into the commercial system, in some states more. Says that the commercial system can mix/blend/sort at origina a lot better than the relatively small Canadian system. Primary elevator space in each of the provinces can hold about 10% of the crop. North Dakota has enough commercial space for 50% of the crop, much like Iowa or Illinois. States like Texas/Oklahoma can store 80% of the crop in commercial elevators.

[wmoebis]

The CWB doesn't set the elevation, cleaning and drying charges. The grain companies do, then the CGC okays them. Just like peas, lentils et al.

At one time the CGC set the charges now they just tell us what the grain Co's are going to charge us.

[wmoebis]

Mallee;

We farmers used to own the majority of the terminals at ports through our farmer owned grain companies and co-ops however we voted to put our companies for sale to public and lose control.

Personally, I think it was better when we had the major shares in the ports because then any profits that were made for handling, cleaning, blending and sale of dockage was paid back to producers. We can still own shares in the companies that own the ports but they are not exclusively farmer owned and ran.

I am sure there are others who think differently and that is okay. We have what we voted for, right or wrong.

[parsley]

Oh, you mean like the SWP3 terminal out at Thunder Bay jammed with Triffid flax and owned by Viterra? Ya, I think that's what you mean by old SWP co-operative gone "public". Pars

[wmoebis]

Okay Pars, Maybe that is 1 commodity I am glad we don't own right now. LOL

[malleefarmer]

Personally, I think it was better when we had the major shares in the ports because then any profits that were made for handling, cleaning, blending and sale of dockage was paid back to producers.

Thats basically what we had ABB made a takeover bid,farmers took the money, we had a single desk operator owing storage and handling statewide then viterra bought them out so we basically still have single desk.

Will post more in a moment.

[malleefarmer]

new facilities were built and upgraded and farmers got a small diviedend, farmers were on the board of the copmpanies.

Everyone seemed happy.

Now most farmers are building there own on farm storage to escape spiralling fees which is fine if you have access to domestic market ie dairys and feedlot, piggeries, but if you dont its still gotta get exported some time and go through the ports.

And how our storage was funded was through a levy on every tonne of grain sold but we % of that back in dividend.

Hope you all understand what we had.

[wmoebis]

Sounds just like us. Only here our single desk has never owned any buildings they are our marketing arm. We sold our facilities staight to the bigger companies, then they had rationalization and diversification takeovers till only a couple own all facilities from farm gate to port.

We had a say in selling off these co's and we voted to go this route. Some like it and want the big companies to take over all the grain sales too. We would sell our grain at the farm gate instead if the export position. There by taking domestic price instead of world price. We do have the USA that is a big market and is available by truck and rail but the transport cost would be prohibative for a lot of producers to access and the cost of doing buissness that far away would be very captive to those close to the boarder. I think the majority would end up selling domestic and letting the grain companies get that market share.

We also had a good deal for farmers where we had a freight rate to the port that was set very low and the gov't would negotiate and top it up to the railways. We had lobbiests that talked the gov't into the possability that it was hindering us and the gov't changed this LAW for THEM and we now pay full freight to port. This freight is a huge portion of our costs of production and marketing. If grain was sold at farm gate this cost would be hidden in our price and we would have no control on how much markup the grain companies may add to us.

Maybe now that you guys have lost your control to grain companies you could tell us how much better or worse it is. We are going to have to make these same decisions and vote on them, one day, and a little insite from your perspective might help us know how to vote when that tme comes.

PS. I think you and I both know but thanks for telling us how it is.