CWB wants to import CHEAP EU Feed Grain?

[TOM4CWB]

Thalpenny,

I understand Screening pellets from Thunder Bay – Vancouver was a major topic, and how the CWB could get a better freight rate with it’s “Power”.

You comment;

“The issue of importing cheap feed grains from other countries was not that the CWB would be importing grains for sale into Canada, but rather identifying that on a landed Sask. basis, grain could be procured from the Black Sea area competitive with or perhaps slightly cheaper than current feed values. “


Now, what is the effect of CWB actions?

Cost, the CWB says it can do this identifying and communicating free?

I know, as every grain farmer know, every activity I engage in has a cost, and I know the CWB is no different.

There is a large cost to me, that you folks at the CWB are engaged in multiple activities in the political arena, actively promoting political policies that are not supported by the CWB Act, or your purpose for existing. Yet I must pay for you doing these activities, and I object.

Just in case you forgot, I will remind you:

Powers

6. (1) The Corporation possesses the following powers:

(a) to buy, take delivery of, store, transfer, sell, ship or otherwise dispose
of grain;


Sale and disposal of grain

7. (1) Subject to the regulations, the Corporation shall sell and dispose of grain acquired by it pursuant to its operations under this Act for such prices as it considers reasonable with the object of promoting the sale of grain produced in Canada in world markets.


These are your purpose and reason for existence.

Are you telling me the Multinational grain companies and large co-op organizations like Agricore United/SWP are not aware of the international situation, and need CWB advice?

Would you have me believe, if political and economic logistics were in order, that these organizations could not efficiently and effectively handle feed procurement logistics?

I know SWP/Agpro has been dealing with these logistics for months, and have been supplying multiple car delivery options for feed, so why is the CWB now the expert advisor on bringing feed into western Canada?

What in the CWB Act compels you to involve yourself in this activity?

Why aren’t you working on marketing logistics that help grain producers, who by the way have less marketing and input cost control options than livestock producers.

Where is the cash purchase option we farmers so desperately need?

You correctly stated:

Oh yeah, to respond to the PRO question – Tom4cwb knows that the PRO is an estimate of final returns over a 12 to 15 month period, and that there is lots of volatility right now. PROs are estimates of final returns to farmers, and do not reflect cash trading values on a spot basis.

This crop is not in the bin yet, and volumes and quality are still up in the air.”

So I don’t know how much what I have to sell yet, and couldn’t commit it to you before August 1, 2002.

And prices are high, yet I cannot cash price when I do know volume and quality…

So I am stuck with the CWB Pool, if I end up with milling wheat.

Now what have you done with the Pool for 2002-03???

When the Commissioners were running the CWB, the policy was to only cash sell throughout the year, to insure grain farmers did in fact get the “Pool” average price the CWB got throughout the year.

Now I am told the CWB doesn’t do this any more, otherwise the PRO would in fact be higher than it is now…

So if the CWB hedges, and doesn’t risk manage those hedges, the pooling accounts pay the price, and I also get less from my crop insurance coverage.

Malt growers get less for their barley…

So, Thalpenny, fess up…, has the CWB sold grain without risk management, when no-one committed wheat to the 2002-03 crop year yet?

How is the CWB going to get malt barley and wheat to supply pre-sold low value contracts, other than to drive down domestic prices for grain, in whatever method possible, to work yourselves out of this mess you yourselves created?

Isn’t this what is really the incentive behind your CWB actions…???


NOW, HOW DO THESE cwb ACTIONS MAXIMISE MY RETURNS, as a wheat grower ? ? ?

[TOM4CWB]

Conspire away, tom4cwb. This worrying about the CWB mandate and should the CWB directors talk about possible solutions to evident problems is like looking gift horse i the mouth. The cheap international feed grain cominginto Canada is much ado about nothing anyway, I suspect.

Regarding your comments on what has been sold without risk management, I think you're speculating wildly. Are you suggesting that the PRO, reflecting sales over a long period of time, should just reflect the spot price of today?

I suspect the PRO will improve on the next announcement, but I don't know by how much. Anything more is speculation on my part.

Tom

[TOM4CWB]

Thalpenny,

I believe an answer on CWB sales policies is only reasonable.

You obviously didn't answer my question about CWB pricing and risk management within the pooling accounts.

Farmers have no choice but to speculate on why, how, and when you sell our grain within a pooling year.

I for one need to know this information, particularily when you refuse to offer a viable cash pricing marketing tool.

And since it is my grain you are selling, not the CWB's, why can't you offer information about the timing and volumes of sales you are making on my behalf.

On Barley, why is the CWB even bothering with it when it is painfully obvious all that happens is market distortion and farmers loss, whenever the CWB pooling system trys to deal with it?

Why exactly don't you offer a fair cash price on malt and feed barley throughout the year, with pooling that reflects fair prices???

There is obviously much work that the CWB needs to concentrate their efforts on, without entering the political arena...

How long do you think grain farmers will put up with your lack of concrete marketing improvements and marketing performance enhancments?

Why doesn't the CWB offer minimum price contracts like the OWPMB does?

Why doesn't the CWB offer cash prices like the OWPMB does?

Don't "designated area" grain producers have a right to be suspicious and tired of the retoric the CWB churns out in massive expensive amounts (which we must pay for), especially when your performance is dreadful compared with our other marketers in our other products???

[flatbroke]

I certainly don't think it ludicrous for the CWB to be involved in this. Their ability to co-ordinate backhauls of screenings would be unique and benificial, and certainly no less harmful than fusarium infected U.S. corn that is flooding across the border as we speak. It seems to me very short sighted to gouge cattle operators this year, only to drive them out of business and eliminate a major market for feed grains for many years to come. Is it necessarily the CWB's role? Probably not directly, but they should have an interest in grain producers long term survival, and I do think such things would qualify given the circumstances.We do not live in a vacuum! Really, the farmers of Ontario and the maritimes should not be expected to help us either, but thank God they are, whilst the federal Liberals sit back and watch with their thumbs up their (noses). Also, why not complain about CN and CPR donating rail cars? Because without exeption, every CWB basher I've ever spoken with seems to have the greatest concern for ensuring huge profits for the railways. After all, the CWB was established solely to keep us poor. It's the railways and Multi-national grain merchants that really have our best interests at heart , right? In times such as these, we'd better wake up to the fact the Ont. farmers have already figured out; if we don't get out of this "you against me" attitude and into "us against them", there won't be any us.

[parsley]

flatbroke,

In the July, August Grainews published by the Canadian Wheat Board, the Board explains how the PRO is designed to give farmers better price signals. It is supposed to be a tool to equip farmers to be better decision makers , thus farmers should be able to depend upon the information because as the Board says, "all CWB PRO's are based on confirmed sales and projected sales prices." But a farm publication accuses the Grainews article of being "basically untrue" !
This week's Manitoba Co-operator sums up it's editorial about the CWB's Pool Return Outlook, commonly called the PRO, by stating:

"The PRO for barley, it seems, is actually a manipulated figure designed to suck barley into a sales program that is not returning the highest price and best returns for farmers. The PRO, in short , is a con."

Farmers read how the CWB, as the editorial says, "dumped 56,000 tonnes of barley at $135 per tonne, a loss of $45 per tonne, or $2.5 million in total, over what could have been realized from domestic sales." You need to understand this, flatbroke. Cowboys directly paid grain farmers more than the Wheat Board did and in actuality, their returns on feed barley was $135 per tonne.

The commentary tells us "the CWB virtually took $2.5 million out of the pockets of barley farmers-----money they would have had if the CWB had published an honest PRO and let the barley move into the domestic market"

Discussing the PRO, the Manitoba Co-operator editorial even goes on to say: "It is easiest of all to be critical of a description of a program, like the one in Grain Matters, which is so far from reality that the word "lie" pops to mind."

You seem to think, flatbroke that the railways are out to get everyone, and perhaps they are, but first of all, don't you think it is a good idea if farmers address the most obvious liar of all, the one farmers have blindly put their trust in--------the Canadian Wheat Board?

And you want them to negotiate on your behalf? Good grief.

Parsley

[parsley]

flatbroke,

That should read Grain Matters, not Grainews. The CWB publishes Grain Matters. Sorry for the error.

Parsley

[TOM4CWB]

Flatbroke,

Whose Screenings were these to begin with? Were they not our, and didn't we have to pay to have them cleaned out and shipped to port position on CWB grains???

Where is the CWB on this issue, why are they allowing us to be ripped off?

I wrote on Topic; Screenings How should we set the Combine about the CWB/Elevator Co. scheme to get our money, so don't paint me with that brush.

Infact Flatbroke, I could accuse you of wanting me to be ripped off because the CWB monopoly stops competition, and allows grain handlers and millers to steal from us as was found to be the case in Ontario;

"Meanwhile, Ontario millers have complained that the move away from the single desk wheat board model is a bad move creating a dysfunctional market. They say a dual system creates chaos. A return to a single desk seller would be a better option.

Foster just smiles.

"The millers had a good deal under the old system, guaranteed volume at a locked in price and they paid only when they ground the wheat," he said.

"A market system will force them to bid and sometimes pay more and buy when we want to sell. It is, after all, the wheat producers' marketing board and not the millers' marketing board."

Could one of the reasons we are "flatbroke" the CWB??????

[chaffmeister]

I approach this issue of the CWB's interest in "imports" of foreign grain or "re-imports" of screenings from a different perspective.

1. I believe the CWB needs to be aware of the issue of potential imports of foreign grain, just as it needs to be fully aware of what competitive values are for competing grains (Australian wheat, for example). Whatever may impact the price of grain in Western Canada is fair game for the CWB analysts to be "on top of". To have it any other way would be mean the CWB wasn't doing its job (whether you WANT it to do this job is another issue.) Let's be realistic - if the CWB made a serious mistake because it was unaware of some market factor, it would be soundly criticized for it (by all of us). On the other hand, I can't criticize the CWB for knowing about potential imported values; I will criticize it for NOT knowing.

2. I believe there is no need for the CWB to be involved in any movement of screenings or imported grain whatsoever. There is nothing that I am aware of that the CWB could bring to the table that the grain trade and railroads can't accomplish. (If you don't like the CWB taking money out the pool accounts to pay to administer non-designated area export permits, how would you feel if it takes money out of the pool to administer imports?)

3. The CWB has in excess of 20,000 tonnes of feed barley in the grain hamding system - left overs from last year. What WOULD make sense is for the CWB to sell this feed barley into the domestic feed market; the CWB should not carry over any feed barley at July 31, 2003. If some of this barley is in terminal positions (say, Vancouver), then the CWB could be involved in getting it back to the prairies where it is needed. (It doesn't NEED to be involved, but it could be.) Beyond this though, the CWB should not be involved in any "back-hauls" or "coordination" of grains being IMPORTED into western Canada.

I asked the question elsewhere but I'll ask it here:

What happens if the CWB has no feed barley receipts this year (in other words, NO pool)? Where would the revenue from selling the CWB inventory go? Who would get it? (Not to mention the issue of the $8 million in interest that is supposed to go into the "non-existant" feed barley pool.)

[AdamSmith]

Rumour is that the business has already been done. 58,000t of feed wheat out of eastern Europe.

In principle I have no problem with this grain coming into western Canada, but what I do have problems with is,
1) This is just one more example of the CWB overreaching into areas which it ought not to be.

2)Grain farmers are paying the costs associated with facilitating this activity which will have a dampening effect on feed grain prices. A double whammy on those of us who have grown a crop this year.

3) The CWB and it's current Board of Directors has again demonstrated that profitable returns to the grain farmers of western Canada IS NOT their main focus.


The 5 incumbent directors need to be defeated this fall and directors who have their priorities straight must take the reigns of power at the CWB.

A political commentator, who's name I won't mention, is always saying: DO NOT JUDGE THEM BY THEIR WORDS, JUDGE THEM BY THEIR ACTIONS.

Should farmers this fall pass judgment on the incumbent directors records and judge them by their action and ignore their words. Come this time next year the CWB will be a vastly different institution.

flatbroke you refer to the Ontario farmers figuring out how to work together. Well your right, they elect farmers into positions of influence who do try to accomodate new approches and who will not dismiss out of hand the opinions of a majority of farmers. The OWPMB does not have an adversarial attitude like our current CWB board of directors.

Change the directors and you'll be amazed how attitudes on the prairies will improve.

[charliep]

Just seeking clarity. This type of business has been done into eastern Canada but not the west.

My research indicates one company is doing the math on feed barley from eastern Europe and the numbers are close to making business possible (feed wheat wouldn't be that far off). There are a number of hoops to jump through on the phyto sanitary side and CFIA/other regulatory agency rules - may not be doable from this side because of these issues. This busy is commercial without CWB involvement.