CWB! Lowest price is the Law!

[charliep]

sawfly

Don't know if a good or bad sale either. It also likely fits with the CWB sales pace model the board of directors uses for monitoring operations performance in the annual report.

In making a sale, the key issue is its new crop with lots of production risk in western Canada (hopefully not relying on old crop supplies although I guess a way to clean the elevator system out if the CWB could negotiate October shipment). In a world of unknowns, it is a question of how the CWB manages your risk (i.e. farmers) given they bare no risk themselves as an organization. No money - no risk.

[parsley]

There is a magazine named, "Bakers Journal" which services the baking trade

2. The annual subscription cost is $31.80.

3. In the June edition, which arrived last week, Cargill's 'Horizon Milling' advertises on the inside cover page, advertising flour and "so much more"

4. On the first right hand page of the magazine, the CWB has paid for a full page ad, with their logo, a red maple leaf, with the familiar wheat kernel head on the left of the maple leaf and the CWB letters placed to the right side of the head.

Note: Actually, the logo itself does not differentiate between Western wheat and Ontario wheat, who is fast becoming our most robust competitor.

5. Underneath the logo is the message for bakers: " Canadian Wheat Makes it Good"

6. At the bottom of the page, beneath a photo of baked goods piled in front of a stainless steel stove, is the sentence:
"Start with great ingredients. End with a smile. Ask your supplier for flour made from 100-per-cent western Canadian wheat."

7. Keep in mind that each flour miller, such as Horizon Milling, or P&H Milling Group, has the following options available to them when buying milling wheat:
1. EU wheat
2. American wheat
3. Ontario wheat
4. Captive Western wheat (Western farnmers have no option but to sell to the CWB)

8. May I be so bold as to suggest that the CWB cut the crap and simply bribe each millers' purchasing agent? At least farmers wouldn't have to pay advertising firms for magazine production costs. Pars

[Choice2U]

Sawfly....you don't know if the CWB made the right decision or not?? Why is it so hard for CWB supporters to understand that the decision made by the CWB of when and how much to sell and at what price should be MINE and not theirs. My only choice now is to play the CWB lotto games of FPC or BPC in which they have set the rules. Oh, and I have to pay a fee to do this. I could stay in the pool and TRUST them like you but I, unlike you, do not want someone else making those decisions. I don't need a DADDY any more. Too bad some farmers have never grown up.

[bucket]

choice2u

Well said.

[cityguy]

So a few things. First off, just to get it out of the way I certainly believe it's your wheat, your business, only you can best manage it. Second off, politicians of all stripes have a hand in the current system - red/blue/orange/pink - all of them. With regards to the Saudi business in one of the stories it was noted that the German's did the majority of the business. Fact is that they did 16 of the 18 cargo's and the CWB did two cargo's for shipment sometime between October and April - two. And they were of the 14% dry matter (europeans always quote protein as dry matter basis) which is our equivalent of about 12.2 protein. So it's not a "high" protein sale and if anyone is comparing to a "card" price then make sure you compare the 12.2 or 12.5 card price. As an aside, this past weekend the Egytians bought a couple of cargo's of hard wheat, one from Russia, one from the Ukraine. Am guessing that the CWB is figuring with all of this moisture around, with N leeching away, there's going to be more low protein out there again this year and if you have to sell that stuff it's the germans/russians/ukraine that you have to compete against. So they "test" the market with a couple of cargo's. What's scary is we don't know if the CWB price of your wheat pulled that $240 average up or down. As for US wheat, it's on the outside looking in relative to a multitude of origins - again. That being said, the US farmer is simply making the choice to maybe sell half at a relatively "high" price and keep the rest at home. Here, the CWB basically cleans out your wheat bins and whatever it takes to get the job done. They may pick and choose a few destinations where they can get a small premium, but they have to get down into the muck if they want to move it all - or at least all that you've collectively given (key word - given) them to move.

[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.