Report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food

[TOM4CWB]

thalpenny,

Take a look at what the CWB has done to the CWES wheat!

I was told shipping by the CWB of this premium class of wheat will almost disappear next year.

Elevators don't want it, just like CPS White, they need to blend it into CPS RED to move it out through the system in a timely manner.

No wonder no-one likes our CPS/CWES wheats.

The last benchmarking CWB study has a fatal flaw, the flawed assumption is that the CWB holds up world prices because of its monopoly.

Ask a cannary seed or yellow mustard seed buyer about how quickly farmers gave their special crops away, and how competitive they must be to survive!

CWB price discrimination is a chance for the CWB to have cheap give away sales without any farmer ever knowing what you are up to. If we knew, what your giveaway prices were, we would never deliver the grain to you.

Competition means you can't do give aways, and that is what you are so afraid of.

Farmers working together can extract a premium price, without the CWB, just ask any cattle feeder who had to buy barley last winter in western Canada!

The CWB's old tired lines are getting worn out. It is sad when you won't get with reality in 2002 and work for the privelege of marketing my grain, instead you think it is your right.

You got away with this for a long time, how much longer will we believe you on blind faith and shrinking margins alone?

[charliep]

Just a note on canola basis variation is likely $5 to $10 within a crop year with the other extremes exceptions. Basis variability should be treated as an opportunity with the ability to put an extra 10 to 20 cents/bu in a farmers pocket that wouldn't exist otherwise.

Comparing canola basis to CWB deductions is also not fair. CWB deductions are cost of converting an average port price to a local level. Canola basis is what relates a futures price to a local cash price for all market participants (including local crushers).

A more relevant comparison would be to compare US cash markets (including quality and protein premiums) to the relevant futures. There is significant variability in US basis used in CWB daily pricing calculations. This variability is hidden in the pooling system and is not visible to outside people.

[charliep]

Welcome back Tom4cwb.

I am looking for clarification on your comments on mustard and canary seed. In hindsight, a person may have waited/got a better price. A person made the decision based on the best information at the time and their profit/cashflow targets.

A discussion for a different link but maybe relevant to this thread is that the pulse/alternative crop industry really needs more tools to help them manage their risks and marketing needs. A role for a new type of non compulsory CWB?

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie,

RIGHT ON!

This is the attitude that the CWB MUST foster if they really want to be around in ten years, adapting and being proactive in leading change...

If the CWB can become innovative and ask nicely, allowing voluntary wheat and barley marketing by themselves, then legislative changes would easily be put in place to accomodate expanded marketing opportunities with other crops...

On is this not what the CWB wants?

The full service marketer with complete access to all grains will do a much better job of serving our customers... can't the CWB become this... or would this be tooooo much wooooork??????


Or is the CWB right, that they haven't ever been anything but an added burden in the marketing system with no real purpose other than to carry out inventory control on "designated area" wheat and barley, for the benefit of the rest of Canada's agriculture?

SO the CWB has a choice to make, like bringing a horse to water, will they drink?
Or will they refuse and die of thirst... rather than adapting like their farmers must do to survive in a rapidly changing world!

[parsley]

Remember how the CWB went from Voluntary Wheat > Compulsory? It's would be easy to go from voluntary canola to compulsory. Tom4CWB, you have to be careful meeting Jack the Ripper for lunch.

This is printed on this site:

Section 18.1 The Minister may by order direct the Board.

And I got into the old papers....."MINUTES OF THE WHEAT COMMITTEE OF CABINET MEETING held in Honourable Jas. A. MacKinnon's Office on Thursday, May 2, 1946, at 5:00 p.m."

This is one entry:

"Dr.Wilson mentioned the need of broad wheat exports to provide a substaining cargo for Canadian shipping."

What a good idea for the shippers!

The point is the CWB can gabitate all they want and bat those pooled eyes at the fundraisers, but in the cold light of morning, the Minister is instructed by the Government and the CWB is instructed by the Minister. The CWB legislation still supports this system in 2001, and it doesn't neccessarily work in the interests of farmers. The shipping is just one example.

We need to get out of reach of the legislative pickpockets.

Parsley

[TOM4CWB]

Parsley,

Its obvious you do not trust the CWB, and you obviously have good reasons for this mistrust.

The CWB is in trouble because of this lack of trust, it seems the worse things get the more the CWB spends to try to convince us through slick media and spending at farm functions to impress us.

Actions and performance always are much more important than words, especially when these slick media blitzes work against the CWB instead of enhancing its image.

Too bad the CWB directors wouldn't listen to farmers instead of hiring slick consultants who they pay to tell them what they want to hear.

This is why the Standing Committee said what they said about the CWB conflict, it is destructive and hurts everyone.

Even those Liberals with their eyes closed couldn't miss the insanity of doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

[parsley]

Here's a a Father's Day gift of valuable thought for Agri-ville readers:

"Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but
to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been
created. Creation comes before distribution--or there will be
nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the
need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the
second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced
above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of
charity. We shrug at an act of achievement." A.R.

Parsley

[AdamSmith]

thalpenny you wrote;

"So if an open market is what farmers want, they should be prepared to forefeit these items. But a dual market can not exist in a sustainable way. Ont. mills are saying they want the single desk, or an open market. This inbetween stuff is dysfunctional, and uncertain and not good for business."

My response to thalpenny would be that I have already forefeited those items because I have quit growing wheat and barley for the CWB. I am growing Winter Wheat, CPS Wheat and Feed Barley, all of which are destined for the domestic feed market. 99.99% of that decision was made because I didn't want to deal with the CWB at all. How many other farmers are making the same decisions? How many acres of land are becoming out of the CWB's reach? At what point in time will we hit that majic # when the CWB collapses under it's own weight? In my area this year I would bet that acres dedicated to CWB exclusive grains (CWRS,Durum,Malting Barley) would be between 20% and 30% of what would have been planted ten years ago. This is no exageration.

The point is this thalpenny, the CWB can play it's word games, it can stall for time and use all the old, tired and worn out scare tactics it wants but the reality is that the CWB must decide soon if it wants to exist as one of many or not at all.

The CWB must decide if it's prepared to be the best marketer it can be for those farmers who, by free choice, want to use it's services. Or whether it wants to remain defiant to the bitter end and wait for some kind and generous parlimentarian to put it out of it's misery.

The status quo is no longer sustainable. Either the CWB loses acres by giving up it's monopoly or the CWB loses acres because it refuses to.

AdamSmith

[parsley]

Want to read what the participants at the Standing Committee actually said? Copy and paste this in your Location box:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/InfoComDoc/37/1/AGRI/Meetings/Evidence/agriev73-e.htm

Parsley