CWB! Lowest price is the Law!

[Fransisco]

sawfly said, "do not know if this was a bad sale or not. but in the international market the lowest price is the law. do you think the board should not sell anything."

The Board and it's supporters all swear up and down that they get us a premium and that that is the reason they should be allowed to steal our grain.

So sawfly, even if they don't get us a premium you think they should still be allowed to steal our grain. Is that it?

[cityguy]

When people talk "premium" is the expectation that on any given day the CWB price delivered Cdn elevator has to be high enough to deter someone delivering the same grain to a US elevator? If it doesn't then has the CWB failed their "stakeholders"?

[charliep]

The CWB model is also about the ability to price differentiate. That
is, sell the same quality wheat on the same day in alternative
markets for different prices. It may sell at premium prices but it also
may discount to make sales. The combination of sales and timing is
what goes into a farmers pooled payments.

[Fransisco]

At the end of the day when all is said and done it's what goes in a farmers pocket that matters.

I suppose there are a number of different ways you could define "premium". But the lowest standard I can think of is that the price going back to the farmers pocket should at the very least be above average. And with the wheat board in charge it is lower than average time, after time, after time.

[cityguy]

above average of what though? average of prices received in US, above average of prices received in Australia, Ukraine, Argentina. Think that the pro-choice group has done a very poor job of picking a very public/transperant benchmark to hold the CWB accountable to on an ongoing basis and that the no-choice group has done a great job of hiding their pricing benchmarks. Randomly picking off US values, if indeed US equivalent is the benchmark, isn't good enough. Someone needs to be posting it - maybe on this site - US country bids for like protein, every day and at the end of every month/year say this was the average US price. There are issues such as how much was sold in the US on a daily basis that will distort things, no doubt, but have to start somewhere. Yes - there have been countless "studies" done but they all get thrown out as having a preconceived bias by the other side. but there's this endless "they get a premium, no they don't, do so, do not,do,don't" that goes on forever. At the end of the pay you'd think that the philosophy of choice would win out anyway, just on that alone, but it haasn't and it won't.

[samhill]

To me, it is more than about what is in my pocket at
the end of the day, it is about the freedom of my
property. Never mind the longshoreman strikes and
demeurage that I have to pay, the salaries,
comissions,and expenses of the CWB. The fact that
only a designated portion of the Canadian
population is subject to this. As well as held
hostage by CPR, CNR and the line companies, with
elevation, cleaning charges. People that are directly
connected to buying feed grains for livestock in
control. On top of that, we have to report
production and what we have to sell to the buyers.
And still compete with world markets for inputs.
The whole thing is indefensible, everyone knows it.

[charliep]

Because of the US farm programs, US prices are readily available - weighted average and
otherwise - are readily available. Example would be Montana.

<a href="http://wbc.agr.mt.gov/Producers/pricing_current.html">montana grain prices</a>

You can also to the USDA annual yearbooks plus other databases. US is the most open and
available price in the world. Why wouldn't a Canadian farmer use this as a benchmark? Why
wouldn't the same farmer want to access the US market?

It is interesting to me that feed barley cannot flow south but US will come north this year (cap
prices) unimpeded. It would seem to be a strange situation. If you are interest in another
weird situation, look at the differences in price between European competition and North
America malt barley prices. I guess your argument would have the reason for this as the CWB
ability to price differentiate. Does it do the western Canadian farmer any good in terms of sale
income?

[charliep]

Sorry about the winding sentence. Apple computers do strange things when you stretch lines to get imbedded links to work.

[charliep]

To the original topic. Why did the CWB make the Saudi sale? $240 CIF would
be less than $200 FOB. That would be $5/bu port or $4/bu elevator
driveway. I assume that if you are going to forward, you would want to lock
a high price that covered farmers cost of production?

[furrowtickler]

The problem is alot of cwb permit book holders have absolutely no cost of production at all and will never complain as long as they get their pmts in the mail or direct deposited into retierment funds. That's a problem I have, they have no clue as to the actual farmers cop and could care less. Thus they will always support the cwb regardless of performance. But also cop is widely different from fsrmer to farmer.

[samhill]

Yes Charlie and Furrow, keep on creating that smoke
haze and adjust the mirrors.

[Choice2U]

Samhill...TRUST THE CWB is the biggest smoke/haze ever to exist in the grains industry. Every supporter argues the CWB is best but never supplies any concrete arguements that are based on anything more than TRUST. Ex. Richard Grey study funded by the CWB based on information supplied by the CWB. Oh, but I guess that isn't trust.

[Fransisco]

citiguy try this data set on for size

http://www.mgex.com/history/historical_new.cfm

You can get the average daily in the farmers pocket cash price for hard red spring in over 300 elevators going back over more than a decade. You can download it in excel format make the appropriate currency adjustments and easily do comparisons until the cows come home.

I have, and there's no doubt about it, there is no premium, the cwb sucks and my family has been getting screwed for the last three generations on our wheat.

[cityguy]

thanks for this. So the average price this year has been $5.15 and the dollar at about 95 cents makes it about $200 Cdn at the elevator pit. Can't find what protein this is for though? Which protein are they quoting. Won't get into the weeds as to a weighted average price as opposed to a straight average as this should be close enough. At the end of the day it's all about benchmarking against US and only US values, correct?

[furrowtickler]

sam, old pal, what I stated is 100% correct and you know it. At least 1/3 of cwb eligible voters never spend a dime on the crops grown under the cwb stangle hold, thus don't care what the performance is as long as they get their petty little interm pmt's in the mail or direct deposited.