Eat Crow!!!

[smallguy]

For those a few years ago that were so much in favor of the Crow Rate to be banished, remind me again why? I still think that 1.00 a bushel would of looked pretty good in my pocket. Refresh my memory please!!

[Hopperbin]

The idea I believe was to value add here instead of promoting to ship offshore raw product. Myself I think it was the right thing to do, pocket book may think otherwise.

[Hopperbin]

How do you come by 1 dollar per bushel?

[BreadWinner]

CWB should have flown with the crow and we would see allot more value added in wheat, instead we have zero.

[Kodiak]

small guy. Do you remember 3 bushel per acre quotas? Topping off at 6 or 9 for the crop year? Ever notice those government purchased hopper cars? About 20,000 of them. And CWB cars. Who paid for those?

[smallguy]

My personal feelings: You can talk value added and all the other possible points, but once again farmers being the short term thinkers we are, all we saw were dollar signs on our brain. a chance to pay off debt, or buy a quarter or two of land with that money. Oh ya, i do remember the 3-6 quotas, i do believe that also when our American friends had bushels upon bushels piled on the ground with no sales at all.

[BreadWinner]

Smallguy, you have been around a long time. I hope you are around long enough to see how great things will be when the CWB is gone as well. Im sure you will still be casting your ballot for the CWB in the old folks home. No more wheat or barley on my farm till this dinosaur is dead.

[smallguy]

Breadwinner:
You must be new here. I have said many times on Agriville before, that I HAVE NOT supported the wheat board for years.
Oh!! only the open minded people would have remembered that on here.

[Fransisco]

I'm with hopper, how did you come up with $1/bu?

The way I remember it the crow subsidy went straight to the railroads.

[smallguy]

That is exactly what the crow was. After it was terminated the railroads raised there price 1.00 a bushel to compensate for the lose of government subsidy. Now the big question is: it was a huge taxpayers bill, and whether it would of continued, I have my doubts.

[BreadWinner]

Sorry for pinning the Big CWB pin on you, I was to young to know much about the crow. All I remember is that the landlord just loved getting the cheque in the mail and not sharing with the renters. All the farmers didnt know what they gave up till it was gone, it wasnt like they had any say anyways.

[Braveheart]

Smallguy, there hasn't been a "crow" since the early 1980's. Jean-Luc Pepin and Pierre Trudeau rolled the benefit into the Western Grain Transportation Act. The benefit was a declining balance, kinda like paying out an annuity. It was continued to be paid to the railways at the urging of the three Prairie Pools (to protect their export positions in TB), and the lobbying of the lost in left wing NFU. Pierre Trudeau later admitted that had been a mistake and the benefit should have went to farmers. NO FARM GROUPS I KNOW OF WANTED TO DUMP THE BENEFIT. Those on the other side of the "crow debate" wanted it paid to farmers until the balance declined to nothing which it would have by now.

As far as the payout compensation paid to landlords, farm groups and the government made the erroneous decision that the crow benefit was capitallized into the value of western farmland and that values would drop when the benefit was yanked. The feds, the wheat growers, barley growers, etc. all agreed with the way the payout went and were ALL wrong. The value of western farmland went up almost overnight. The comp should have went to the operator of the land.

But Smallguy, don't go back there. The WGTA/Crow created more inefficiencies than we can recount. Just move on.

[agstar77]

The mistake made was the trade off. The railways would have traded the crow for open running rights with a single company formed to maintain the rail lines. Of course now , no one has the guts to stand up to them.

[Burbert]

DO NOT LUMP ALL COMEDIAN FARMERS TOGETHER. We did not agree with killing the crow, in any way shape or form. We knew that the result would be, higher cost for farms! So it was and piratizing grain transportation began. Live, with it boys/girls, this huge mistake cannot, will not ever be undone. Remember the words, "In perpituity as long as the rivers flow and the sun rises," something like that.

[gregpet]

Burbert, is that Canadian farmers, American farmers or are we back to discussing comedians again?