Richardsons

[cottonpicken]

Wierd story,take it at face value.

Dumping a load at at the local pionerr and noticed a
bag of lentils on the desk and asked about grades and
qualities bla,bla,bla guy said" rumour is we are going
to start taking this stuff".

I had a hard time lifting my jaw off the floor.

[gregpet]

They are the leader for yellow pea prices around the yorkton area.

[food4u]

Viterra was pushing strong in our area last spring with red lentil contracts. Two cents less thah anyone else plus NO act of god clause.Never heard if they had any takers.

[gustgd]

Definitely true.

buddy went to grading school last week, I think they are talking two delivery points this year and depending on uptake, who knows?

Make sure you watch what screens they are checking dockage over. CGC says #9 tell them no delivery unless it's an 8
Only works if the grade is 2 or better. If your fighting over grade might have to shop around.

Davidson is a delivery point for Viterra this year.

Same deal with grading these guys all are going on two hours training.

[furrowtickler]

Oh great, vitera in the lentil game. Maybe they can tank that market as good as they did the pea market. Anyone remember the end of Jan and what happened to pea prices? - Vitera dumped a hauge amount into the market at almost $2/bus below trade to get rid of the volume tied up in their system.

[mbratrud]

Both Richardsons and Viterra did several trains last year as test projects. Might even give them a little credit for sparking the market up a bit in late December.

I have mixed feeling I think the competition will be good with so few large players in the Lentil Market. I just hope they dont "sewer the market" for the sake of volume.

BIGGEST BENEFIT Nice to dump your Lentils in the pit and leave with a check! Something Saskcan used to do. None of this waiting a week for a grade and dockage and couple weeks after that for a cheque. Definatly going to change the pulse industry.

[cottonpicken]

Mb-whats the local lentil story,heard any grades?

[mbratrud]

Mostly 2 or better so far, some 3s due to sprouting. Lots that havent been graded yet. Not going to be pretty if current forecast is correct. I think there has to be half the lentils out still in this area. You have any thoughts on that?

[cottonpicken]

Just finally got going on some and yield and grade
where better than i thought.Lots out there for sure.

Back to canola for now i guess.

[mbratrud]

how has your canola been yielding?

[dave4441]

The issue is that the line companies are shipping dirty lentils, which gives lots of ammo for countries to stop shipments to drop markets. Some of the lentils went into turkey with 10 % FM and splits last year. Explain to me how you average 10% FM out of Canada on red lentils?

Same problem as Hessian Fly into Korea. They stopped shipments of feed peas into Korea because they contained Hessian Fly. Why was a insect that laid eggs in wheat straw found in Pea shipments? BEcuase they add in dockage at the coast to max the allowed foreign material level. Same thing is happening with lentils. Do large grain companies care? No, they will just switch to a different commodity if there is a ban, and shit runs downhill.

Peas into China-complaints about splits and quality. Does the line co care? Not really, it is all about thru put. Peas are traded for 10 dollars per MT in China. That is the margin, plus margin to load the boat of similar dollar amounts. Complete bastardization of the product.

Line compnanies have large lines of credit becuase the CWB backstops the cash flow. You pay for that immediate payment twice as they pay less for the lentils and it is subsidized from your CWB grains. Generally Viterra is 2 cents below the rest of the trade, becuase they can, becuase farmers will let them be. Why-becuase they owe them for inputs and farm the farmer. It is their inhouse language for tieing the grower with seed and purchasing.

Additionally, there are only a few buyers in the world that can buy boat loads of red lentils, and that is the only place they can really be competitive. Ocean freight is 50 dollars per MT cheaper then container frt and they pay the grower 1-2 cents/lb less, so they will be in it until ocean frt and container frt comes together then off to the next crop. There has already been risk in Turkey, to the red market in Canada, because GMO's (canola) was found in red lentil shipments that went into Turkey last fall. This was resolved, but is a tool coutnries can use to whack the markets down. Growers need to start to consider some of these things when they consider who has they sell product to.

Canaryseed delays into MExico-there is a feeling that dirty canaryseed has been shipped into Mexico and is part of the basis for the currents issues we have re buckwheat. Again, the buyer wanted cheaper uncleaned product, but has totally screwed trade for over 2 months, into the biggest market we have. I am all for open enterprise and free markets, but there is risk being added to special crop markets. These are not like the big grains that are shipped for further processing (milling, cleaning, etc). These are whole food ready to eat products.

[katoe]

You forgot to mention the good margins that grain co. make off conola.

[tipsy]

Dave41 your pretty well bang on there. What I could never figure out is why would an importing country sign a contact that allows 5,8,10%fm or what ever the number when farmers delivering this product to a buyer is in the 1,2%fm orless. Havn't this importing buyers been around to any farms and seen what is actully produced here in western canada?

[dave4441]

The buyers do not really know what that they can demand/negotiate (but everything does come at a cost) lower FM values and Viterra/Richardson have a virtual monopoly strangle on the bulk conventional business so either take it or not is how they do business. If they do not make the pea sale they just focus on canola, etc. Pure monopoly. Margins are extremly low, maybe $20 per MT for elevating on the prairie and loading the vessel. Then they make a little extra blending in screenings that they clean out of wheat/canola, etc. Bottom line is it puts these high value markets at risk and buyer is forced to take it. Again, the spread between bulk conventional and container rates will narrow and this will stop it, or at least give the buyer a choice. Growers also have a choice. As a supplier we can decide who and how our product is handled.

Pulse trade in Canada has alot of competition and overseas buyers are trying everyday to set up operations in Canada, some good, some bad. Last year Viterra/Richardson maybe did 40 to 60,000 MT of lentils, rest was handled by the exsisting trade. And they do not even market the product, most was just sold at the port (loaded) to another Canadian company who sold it to the buyer in Turkey. Smoke and mirrors.

[dave4441]

Margins on CWB grains will be way higher then Canola