CWB Sale

[bucket]

Open market?

Where in the world is one operating?

canada uses the US to price grain.

Their system has a transparent reporting system which was required after what happened in the 70s.

You have to have some level of transparency to make it work.

For guys on either side in Alberta and manitoba it's easy to talk - you know your grain is easy picking for railways with or without government involvement.

But I really don't know why I waste my time. If the new open market is better good for you.

This isn't what I expected.

And when I sign contracts a year in advance to be delivered a month late it pisses me off.

[CptnObvious]

I am in favour of the open market. I am also in favour of unicorns and put them in the same category; existing only in the imagination.
That said, I would much rather participate in a market in which I had some authority( old CWB) than one in which I was only one beggar among many( now).
The FNA may have been the best of the lot but even if I was a member I would have no influence over my own destiny.

[TOM4CWB]

CptOB,

In your mind... did the CWB do anything to keep prices up.

Canola Just rose $1/bu because the Canola farmers in western Canada/soy growers in the US... decided... that they would not sell for less. And so the world of grain marketing goes.
Subsitution, competition, and cost of production all determine much more than anything else in determining our prices. NOT any concept of a 'single desk' that had 1 tenth the effect of any one of the three (Subsitution, competition, and cost of production) noted above.

The CWB could add market transparency if they decided that was more important than building an empire. Sadly... as before... management still does not get why they need to be a marketer of western Canadian grain!!!

Cheers!!!

[farmaholic]

Tom. Determining the value of grain is determined by supply and demand, competition or lack of for the supplies and yes even substitution if prices get too high. But where I think you're wrong is COP, I really doubt it matters to the buyers what it cost me to produce my crop, they only want to pay as little as possible...

[blackpowder]

I'm sorry Freewheat, but you're full of shit.
I think your only summation that makes sense is that your area has been very hard hit in successive years. And in the valuation angle there might be the opportunity?

[CptnObvious]

Tom, among other things the CWB offered discipline, just exactly what you just said the Canadian canola growers and the American soy growers used to lift their prices. The unbeatable discipline of a legal and supported single desk would be most effective, would it not? No lone wolf to rip the bottom out of the market and ruin it for everyone else. Or target price contracts which the grain co.s are using to do the same.

Also:

When the AusWB ended the price of Aus wheat lost about $20/t relative to its' closest competitor( U.S. PacNorWest)

Just before it was killed our CWB did a 5 year study of Can/U.S. grain prices in the northern states. CWB grain was priced higher than local grain in those states 59/60 months.

Historically the protein premium of 14.5% over feed was about $80/t. The first year of 'market freedom' saw that drop to near zero.

Chinese and S.E. Asian companies which used to buy exclusively from the CWB are now unsatisfied and often look elsewhere( Read: Canada is losing market share and must offer lower prices to get it back).

If you think competition is good for the marketplace you are right. If you think the marketplace is here you are an idiot. We used to have one skilled and disciplined marketer squeezing the last nickel out of the global marketplace for our wheat( and making almost enough on interest rate differential to do it for nothing) and now we have several sellers whom our customers are telling us are unreliable trying to undercut each other for sales.

You know as well as I do that post-CWB prices, as a % of port price, are way, way lower than when we had the CWB. This was exactly why the CWB was brought back the last time. We was bein' robbed!

Tom, re-read your post bearing in mind that we do not know what you are thinking. Sometimes posts on discussion pages read like, "Seven minus fish equals green."

[blackpowder]

Who the fk is this captain oblivious and who really cares?

[CptnObvious]

I am one who is pissed off that the fragile egos and blind adherence to ideology of others has cost me tens of thousands of dollars in income over the last two years.