Call this Meeting to Order

[TOM4CWB]

Halpenny does anyone get fired at the CWB.

Tom4cwb upon the above discussion would you and parsley like to reword your motion to include a free domestic market also. Before we call for a vote.

I know this is probably out of order but we want to get it right. Remember the lies we are told.

[TOM4CWB]

Yes charliep greens $8.00 and yellows $7.00 but you know me always on the optimistic side of things.

[TOM4CWB]

Here goes Kernel,

I move that the Canadian Wheat Board issue export and interprovincial licenses to those Designated Area farmers applying for one.

(No need for changing the Act as this motion is within the boundaries of the CWB Act as it is presently written.)

Parsley

[TOM4CWB]

Parsley and Kernel,

If no-cost export licenses were issued, market arbitage would follow, and the domestic market would eventually have to pay the going competitive price.

I believe the OWPMB exemption system is an excelent model to follow, which would mean a free domestic market as well as export.

[TOM4CWB]

Thalpenny,

I am amazed you finally admitted the truth when you said;


"So they know we will eventually be price takers to clear the system."

It should be obvious the CWB has no more market power than anyone else trading in the world market, So Much For The Benefits of Monopoly Power...

I can be a price taker any day of the week thalpenny, it's real easy...


Being a market maker is a whole different story...


WHAT value does the CWB create for my farm, if they are price takers??

[TOM4CWB]

Tom4CWB,

Why are you chasing after diversions? They will predictably get us nowhere. The Kernel is working to get us to a point where farmers can vote, but you chase cars!

Back to the topic Tom4CWB.....do you want to do something with this exemption part and add it or even make a separate motion with it ?

Parsley

[TOM4CWB]

Tom4CWb - now your getting to understand this a little bit. The fact that you have one seller of the product means that you gain the market clout to be able to counter act the natural predatory action that occurs when there is 70-80% of production required to be exported.

So you want to be a market maker? Explain to me how 90,000 indivdual marketers will achieve an overall better result. Will you be able to extract premiums through long term supply agreements? How will you coordinate 1.5 million tonnes of a certain grade range to capture that?

Will you keep track of the covered/uncovered positions of all the buyers in the world to know what there level of need is and to differentiate between buyers?

Or will you simply take the cash price that a handlful of merchants present for you at Vancouver and think you have done something to make a market.

I think tom4cwb, you are smarter than that.

This isn't economics you're talking about, it is crass politics and ideology.

Tom

[charliep]

I would agree it is economics we are talking about - not politics or relgion.

Economic principle - They who pay get.

In the customers you mention (Brazil, Egypt, Iran plus all the others), which ones have loyalty to Canadian/pay for quality grain and which would buy elsewhere for a 2 cents/bu cheaper price. European wheat supplies are adequate and they continue to aggressively sell. The Aussie is still making sales in spite of their weather problems. My assumption is the CWB sales program will be based on return to pool calculations with lower paying customers getting dropped (I understand the process).

My recommendations to farmers will be similar to the thinking above. The buyer (including the CWB) who pays the best price gets the grain. The domestic feed market should be considered for all grains including high quality/protein CWRS.

My recommendation for wheat is that some combination of initial payments (adding on the benefit of using the early option) plus any trucking premium adds up to $5/bu at delivery before I would sign an "A" series CWB contract. If it didn't, I would either sell to the domestic feed market or store. Initial payments/the theoretical PRO values are worthless in this environment. The expression in the movie Jerry Maquire was "show me the money".

Same comments would apply to malt barley with the number being $4/bu.

[wedino]

Charlie, You say, quote"My assumption is the CWB sales program will be based on return to pool calculations with lower paying customers getting dropped (I understand the process)."

If this statement is true why such a low malt barley PRO?

[charliep]

see my comments under the August PRO thread.

[TOM4CWB]

Thalpenny,

You wrote;

"So you want to be a market maker? Explain to me how 90,000 indivdual marketers will achieve an overall better result."

Part of the real world is that commercial farmers DO have the self dicipline to sell when the price is profitable, except when selling CWB grains, because in that case we are true price takers.

THalpenny, if you looked back 2 years ago on marketing Canola, guess what, $6.00/bu Canola.

Now we are pushing $10.00/bu Canola, without a single desk, 90,000 of us all working together!!!

Infact, since some EU and Ausie producers and marketers use our Winnipeg futures, the true effective number is much greater than 90,000.

Take a look at Cannary seed, why isn't the price still at $.12, but instead, a miracle, it is pushing $.40/lb.

The free market is hard to understand for you Tom, but it is rather obvious that it does work, or feed barley wouldn't be worth more than Malt Barley.

The Barley situation says it all Thalenny, Barley growers do what you consider the impossible, in the feed market.

And the CWB does what you fail to admit, they get suckered into selling too cheap into the Malt Market, as a true price taker has a tendancy to do, especially when they (the CWB)have no true responsibility for what they are doing.

Single Desk selling has huge risk for commercial farmers.

How often do CWB sales people talk to enduser buyers?

Dozens of times each working day.

How often do CWB sales people listen to the farmer who's grain the CWB is selling?

We were supposed to talk to your sales guys on August 14, but, obviously talking to grain producers who were concerned about CWB performance and accountability to us was very low on CWB Radar screens...

Thalpenny, the school of hard knocks is a better teacher than CWB promotion ads and CWB spin doctors...

Parsley, we need to pass the motion, and I guess the vote will be taken during the CWB director elections...

[parsley]

On Thursday morning, one Saskatchewan farmer sent two loads of barley to the USA, with the US buyer paying for the freight and the cleaning. The farmer asked for and got $11.50/bushel,(bushel weight of 55 lbs), marketing on his own. The CWB provided him with a no-cost, no-buyback CWB export license. If the CWB had sold the load it would have been graded as feed.

Seems to mean that kind of farmer- marketing helps the farmers' bottom line, marketing, so that throws out halpenny's theory that the world will come tumbling down if the CWB doesn't market all wheat and barley.

Contrary to what they tell farmers, it also illustrates that the CWB actually can and do issue export licenses without having to change the legislation.

Parsley