Left-wing radicals/ Stewart Wells & CWB

[Fransisco]

Here is the link to Berthold's closing prices for friday.

http://www.bertholdfarmers.com/index.cfm?show=11&mid=26

[gustgd]

CWB director elections should be about direction and policy of a BUSINESS.

YET in the hundreds of calls I made when I ran in two elections it was brought up only a handfull of times.

The Ballot question remains freedom or forced participation. I would estimate that in this district there are 35% of farmers who are pro Monopoly. 55% anti Monopoly. and the rest are indifferent. These are real farmers who do the work, frankly I don't care what landlords think but thats just me.

When I was doing voter ID I asked a local contact to go through the phone book and identify farmers who they thought might vote for freedom. I did not want to waste time and resources on changing minds, and futile arguments.
I would estimate that 20@ of the people ID'd for me were wrong. There are some real farmers out there that fully support the monopoly and ALL that it stands for.
Like some of the posters on this blog they may or may not be NFU or NDP socialists (same thing in my books) but they will chear on the government and feel proud if someone gets too big for their britches and steps over the line.

If you want changes I would encourage you to photocopy your local phone book and help your candidate identify and get out the farmers you know.

If we don't get the balance of power in this cycle of director elections, it's going to get very difficult for whichever party the Conservatives or Liberals are running this government in a minority situation.
This Bull S#%T has gone on long enough.

Here's hoping it won't come to that!!!

[cchurch]

Fransisco,

any idea on freight rates for the U.S. farmers?

Also how many U.S. farmers still have grain left to sell?

[Fransisco]

I'm showing you apples to apples in the farmers pocket price comparisons. If you don't think its apples to apples please explain why.

[JDGreen]

cchurch you are common socialist at best .. What do you care how much someone has left to sell and for what price.. Seriously think about it .. The real problem still remains the voter list and its structure.. My vote is already cancelled by one of my retired landlords who wants his share of 160 acres sold by the board. Great system..

[cchurch]

Yup deducting freight from our price and not the American's price, that is totally apples to apples.

Are you Bernie Madoff's accountant?

[Fransisco]

cchurch your premise is false, they are both in the farmers pocket prices.

Try again.

[cchurch]

WINDMILL COUNTRY: Low prices paid for 'best-ever' wheat crop
By Jerry Lackey
Posted June 7, 2010 at 2:46 p.m.


SAN ANGELO, Texas — As West Texas wheat farmers celebrate the first bumper crop in years, their moods suddenly turn gloomy when reaching the elevators with harvested grain and receive the latest price quotes. Friday’s daily cash market wheat price closed at $2.70 per bushel.

“I can’t believe we are getting 1970 prices in 2010. It is very heartbreaking to see the best crop ever be priced as low as it is,” said Barbara Hoffman of Paint Rock, 30 miles east of San Angelo.

David Holubec, who farms near Melvin, about 60 miles southeast of San Angelo, says farmers need at least $5 to $6 per bushel just to break even.

“The bottom line is our buyers are looking for a 12 percent protein content and most of the wheat in West Texas is averaging 11 percent or below,” said Jason Jacoby, a stock farmer and owner of Jacoby Feed & Seed at Melvin. “If the protein is 11 percent or below, they are discounting it anywhere from 50 cents to 60 cents per bushel.”

To get 50-bushel wheat cut, the cost starting from the combine to delivery at a grain elevator is approximately 72 cents per bushel for the farmer, Jacoby said. As a result, some stockfarmers in Concho and McCulloch counties have decided to leave their crop in the fields rather then lose more money by hiring a custom farm operator and to truck harvested grain to grain elevators.

More than 60 percent of the wheat has been harvested in the Melvin and Salt Gap areas near the Concho-McCulloch county line. The yields are averaging from 40 bushels to 50 bushels per acre with test weights running 62-63 pounds per bushel, Jacoby said.

At least 70 percent of the wheat has been harvested in southwest Runnels County and northern parts of Tom Green and Concho counties serviced by Kasberg Grain Co. in Miles, 17 miles northeast of San Angelo.

“The quality of this wheat is good, but the price is horrible,” said Eugene Kasberg Jr. “We are paying $2.80 per bushel today (Monday).”

Dryland wheat — crops that depend solely on rainfall — in Jones County has average yields ranging from 30 bushels to 40 bushels per acre this season, said Weldon Rainwater, a farmer and manager of Radium Gin at Anson, about 25 miles northwest of Abilene.

“The wheat futures price (July bearish at $4.35) are way up there in comparison, but the local prices are killing the farmer,” Rainwater said. “The prices dropped as low as $1 per bushel at some elevators in the Big Country around Abilene.”

J.W. “Dub” Vinson, a wheat farmer in Taylor County and also in the brokerage business for 32 years, predicted in early May that a record yield would drive the price down.

“Although this wheat crop stands to have a high yield, the protein is not high in an outstanding crop,” Vinson told me during a visit to his Abilene Ag Service and Supply. “Wheat with low protein will hurt the price. If the crop contains a high protein percentage, there will be a greater demand for it.”

Jacoby attributes the protein problem to the weather trends in different areas. “One wheat field may be one thing and the next field is different, depending on when and how much it rained,” he said.

“The rail cars we loaded with wheat on Friday went 11.7625 percent protein content, while we loaded wheat harvested at Mereta (19 miles east of San Angelo) on Monday that ran right at 12 percent protein.”

The Jacoby firm is trucking grain from the elevators at Melvin about 15 miles east to Brady, which has just completed a rail center, a spur in the western part of town that feeds into the American Railroads downtown.

“We are loading from 12 to 20 rail cars per day at the Brady outlet,” Jacoby said.

There is a shortage of rail cars on several short lines. Only 40 percent of the rail cars ordered from Texas-Pacifico have been delivered to Kasberg Grain Co. in Miles.

“We are forced to shut down every day after we fill every rail car here,” said Kasberg.

Extra rail cars were ordered by Abilene Ag this year in anticipation of the larger wheat harvest. The firm finished a new grain elevator that is state of the art, just in time for this year’s crop.

Most of the wheat in the Concho Valley and Big Country is shipped to the Gulf Coast ports — Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi and Beaumont.

Jerry Lackey writes about agriculture. Contact him at jlackey@wcc.net or 325-949-2291.

[Fransisco]

Well well, lets have a closer look at this then.

It doesn't say exactly what kind of wheat this might be. Since it's Texas it's probably hard red winter but then again maybe not. They're also talking about below 11% protein.

I wonder what was being offered at other elevators across the U.S. on the Friday talked about in the article?

Which would be June 4, 2010.

Lets take a look at the MGEX/DTN spot price historical index for June 4th then.
http://www.mgex.com/history/historical_new.cfm

For winter wheat the average cash price of the 855 elevators surveyed worked out to $3.56/bu USD

For hard red spring it worked out to $4.77 USD with 350 elevators surveyed.

The exchange rate on that day was .947 so that works out to...

<b>$3.75/ bu Canadian for winter wheat
$5.03/ bu Canadian for hard red</b>

These prices are of course for standard grades and not low protein wheat.

What was the chaff board offering on June 4th? Lets have a look.

http://www.cwb.ca/db/contracts/ppo/ppo_prices.nsf/fixed_price/2010_201006.html

After standard Manitoba deductions it was...

<b>$3.13/ bu Canadian for winter wheat
$4.23/ bu Canadian for spring wheat</b>


Care to try your luck again?

[cchurch]

So do you think our freight deductions would disappear with an open market?

[Fransisco]

Could you explain the question? What are you getting at?

[cchurch]

If we had an open market for wheat do you think we would still get deductions for rail freight?

Would the grain companies ship our grain for free?

[Fransisco]

What I think is that our cash prices, or the prices that we would get, would would very similar to that of the Northern tier States, in an open market.

[Fransisco]

There is no logical reason why they wouldn't be.

[Fransisco]

It is also quite clear to me that under the current closed market environment we get lower prices than are available in the open market. Be it spot price comparisons or yearly averages the open market beats the CWB hands down.