Off to a Parlimentary vote----Please respond

[Lifer]

Strahl and Co. may have screwed up around the interpretation of the law.

They have shown a committment to the majority of Canadian Farmers. I find his letter more genuine then Ritter's recent writings.

[silverback]

Do you mean where Ken writes that the cwb is going to become FNA II, FCC Lite, and CWB CO-OP Milling???

[Lifer]

fna II, fcc Lite and pretty much f all. Yup that's about right.

[chaffmeister]

Tower:

Did you know the plebiscite was about CHOICE – not about the CWB as an institution. When you say 86% voted to have the choice of dealing with the board, that’s a misrepresentation based on a misunderstanding. If you want the “choice” of the CWB, you vote for the status quo – the single desk. The ONLY reason to vote otherwise is that you don’t want the SINGLE DESK – you want CHOICE.

You asked <i>What would it take to make the board a viable alternative given the nature of the system?</i>

Not much:
- No pools or flexible pricing in pools (no fixed initial payment, final payment stuff)
- Relationships (the CWB’s got them – they need to exploit them)
- Farmers support (again, the CWB’s got some)
- Negotiating skills (to negotiate with graincos to handle the grain)
- Market sense
- Creativity, dedication and an abundance mentality (not a slice of the pie mentality) – the CWB has no monopoly on this stuff – they may need to hire new people.
- And the CWB culture would need to shed its arrogance


Did you know that the Bloc is against CWB choice because it doesn’t like the Conservatives approach to WTO? Did you know that Dion has stated that when it comes to the CWB issue, the Liberals will do whatever is most expedient for the Liberals? That means pander to Quebec. Don’t think for a minute that anyone’s posture has anything to do with supporting western farmers’ interests – except the Conservatives, both in Ottawa and Edmonton.


You seem to think that we’ve been better off with the CWB than without.

Did you know that REAL DATA shows the CWB SYSTEM COST is dramatically and substantially higher than the non-CWB system?
Did you know that REAL DATA shows that the CWB sales performance in barley over the years has been well below average – WELL BELOW.
Did you know that the CWB’s calculations of its value (presented to the Special Task Force) were WRONG, based on a shockingly poor understanding of how the grain system works?

REAL DATA. REAL COSTS. REAL POOR.

[wilagro]

What is this REAL DATA of which you speak? Where can I get some? Is in on the open market...or is it controlled by a consortium of truth sayers?

[chaffmeister]

CWB System Cost vs non-CWB system:
http://www.quorumcorp.net/Downloads/AnnualReports/AnnualReport200506DataTablesEnglish.pdf
Pages 184-186 (wheat, durum, canola)
- data comes from all the players, including the CWB

CWB Sales Performance:
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agc6751/$FILE/sparks%20barley%20study%20april%2004.pdf
Section 5.
- main data source was the CWB

[chaffmeister]

More on real data…..

See http://www.cwb.ca/public/en/hot/future/task/#response2

In part the CWB presented the following to the task force:

<i>The CWB estimates that grain handling companies have charged almost 40 per cent more in basis than their actual handling costs. If the same handling companies had the ability to do the same for wheat, durum and barley, farmers' costs would increase by almost $8 per tonne or $145 million annually (based on a 5-year average of 18 million tonnes marketed through the CWB and handling costs of $19.34 per tonne). </i>

The first line says it all. <i> The CWB estimates that grain handling companies have charged almost 40 per cent more in basis than their actual handling costs.</i>

Whoever wrote this and whoever approved this for presentation to the Task Force and for public consumption do not understand how grain is handled, traded or anything about how the grain system works. <b>NOT AT ALL. NADA. ZIP.</b>

They assume the elevator’s handling and cleaning tariffs registered with the CGC are the company’s costs. <b>They’re not. They have absolutely nothing to do with costs - or fees for that matter.</b>

They assume that the basis is what they charge. <b>It’s not. Not even close.</b>

This demonstrates a frightening lack of knowledge of the system in which they operate. What’s worse is that Adrian Measner, as ex-CEO, was presenting this to farm groups and whoever else would listen – as if it was gospel.

Even those at the very top don’t get it.

Scary indeed.

[tower]

posted Aug 3, 2007 17:25
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"tower, there in a nutshell, is why the cwb has to go, they see the buyers and the users of the grain we grow (the multinationals) not to mention our domestic grain companies, as the enemy.

It's like Stronach at Magna, seeing GM,Ford and Chryler as the enemy."

Perhaps that is true, if Belinda did feel that way, ie that the grain companies, the railroads are competition for the farm share of the consumers food dollar. And I expect the Stronach clan does its best to cut into the profits of the bloated and bureaucratic automotive parts manufacturers.

I would expect the cwb does the same when trying to manoeuve through the grain trade.

Farmers don't need protection from the buyers of grain? What has changed since the wheat pools were established? The pools themselves have been swallowed up by the companies that they were formed to compete with because those companies were ripping off the farmers.

Ya, a little farmers controlled protection is a good thing.

[tower]

Chaffmeister, So you think that the only way there can be choice is if you don't want to deal with the board at all. If that is the case then why do you suppose the gov't in its wisdom presented it as a three way plebiscite, perhaps so that the naysayers out there could spin the results to show that farmers don't want the board?

But unfortunately the numbers work better the other way. More people want the board than don't and by a significant margin.

The trouble with the barley market isn't that we have a thin line between us and the multinationals, who incidentally are making pretty handsome profits buying and moving and cleaning and drying and elevating and marketing our grain, but that the price of grain is too low for the input costs we have to put into growing the stuff. Input costs which also coindentally provide pretty handsome profits to many of those same corporations.

[wilagro]

Well said Tower. What a nice breath of fresh air to read sensible discourse in this forum of radicals.

[AdamSmith]

"...but that the price of grain is too low for the input costs we have to put into growing the stuff."

Why let the facts, even as glaring as they are, get in the way of a good theory, eh tower.

The open market was going to provide good prices for feed and for malt barley. $4 - $4.5 for malt, $3.5 -$3.75 for feed.

The board's prices are $1.13 for feed (Alberta Initial, and malt $1.94 or less (Alberta initial).

Words (false words at that) are the only things you guys at the cwb can offer,

You bitch about the low prices and when they actually improve, you guys applaud the return of low prices?

Pathetic!

[chaffmeister]

Tower – Please don’t twist my words – if I wasn’t clear and/or you didn’t understand, just say so. It’s very important to be clear about the difference between <b>The CWB</b> and <b>The Single Desk</b>.

I did not say “the only way there can be choice is if you don't want to deal with the board at all”. I said if you want <b>The Single Desk</b> you vote for the status quo. If you want <b>CHOICE</b>, that is <b>NO SINGLE DESK</b>, then you vote for either of the other two vote options.

Please don’t muddy the waters by trying to make this a debate about the CWB. This debate is about <b>The Single Desk</b>. It may be convenient for pro-CWB people to talk of them as exactly the same, but they’re not.


You suggest <i>More people want the board than don't and by a significant margin. </i>

Afraid you can’t say that from the plebiscite results – or from the CWB’s own surveys. All you can say is that the majority of people want <b>CHOICE</b> and by a significant margin. Choice may or may not include the CWB – depends on who you talk to. To say that farmers that voted for choice including the CWB (option #2) want the CWB, is not just trying to spin the message your way, it’s downright twisting it.

Your misinformed comment about grain companies’ profits tells me you haven’t looked at the Grain Monitor data that I suggested. If you did, you’d see that grain companies are not making what you think they are on non-CWB grains like canola.

Let's avoid debating in circles based on philosophy and from-the-tummy rhetoric. There is real evidence of what the CWB is costing and how it performs in the market. The CWB's own numbers. You and wilagro are wasting everyone's time by avoiding it. The truth often hurts, but you can't fix something unless you know what you're talking about.

You can't manage what you don't measure. And if you disregard the measurements that are there for you, you're not managing at all.