Forage Seed Market Freedom

[tower]

sumdumguy, I agree with you about the forward sellers. I think it's too risky for our farm, for a lot of reasons. I mentioned earlier the idea of have the economies of scale working for you rather than for the grain companies.

I'm not sure what you mean by the board not being a single seller, how do you see them as not being that?

[tower]

Fransisco, I'm still mad that we lost the quota system... I think the boards gone downhill ever since and each new option provided for farmers has continued to make more farmers mad, I would suggest that is because no set of options are going to help farmers out until farmers get a reasonable price for their grain.

I'm amazed at how excited people get when there's a chance of bettering the price we got thirty years ago. I think that would be a direction that farmers should discuss. It wouldn't hurt if we were then to elect farmers to the board who help us formulate that direction. elect

[tower]

Burbert, There does seem to be a belief by some in that old American saw about underestimating the intelligence of the American people. The funny thing is Americans coined it.

You don't suppose that those people who have spent the most time and money and effort on taking out the board, (who is that?) are inspirations around here.

[Fransisco]

What about paying farmers for protein? Was that a bad move as well?

[Fransisco]

And tower, would it be fair to say that the more the board tries to 'fake' the free market, the less happy you are with it?

[tower]

I agree that protien payments were a good move. I usually don't benefit from grading that is that fine but as a marketing move I think it improved our chances of selling grain.

I expect that the board is pressured into trying to be another player in the grain company style, rather than that they are faking the free market. I imagine there is some resistance to that.

I just don't think that the board is the major problem. I think that low grain prices, to farmers, for all the reasons of farm production capability, managed grain markets, lack of knowledge about primary production, and inefficient transportation, is the major problem.

[silverback]

The board is in charge of what they pay us for wheat and barley.

They are unable to even come close to what farmers around the world are getting paid for their product.

How in the hell can you say they are not the major problem?

They have a finger in all of the other problems you listed off.

The world market wanted to pay us more for our feed barley and you cheer because that got shot down????

Wow!

[parsley]

tower gwiddles out a phrase that made me laugh in my coffee this morning:

"lack of knowledge about primary production"


I have to ask this ...is there any segment of primary production that has not beeen:


studied/calculated/extracted/compiled/
perused/statisticalized/compared/reported/analyzed/sorted/detailed?


Does tower's little phrase-gem hint at the beginnings of yet another Gray study?

What next could possibly be studied at the farmgate?

Number of kernels of grain found in navels at the end of the day?

And the quality, thereof?


Parsley

[Zaphod]

I have to go back to one of tower's questions about the board not being a single seller. When they handle 10% or less of the world barley trade, they are simply not a single seller and any hope of influencing global values or extracting premiums is worse than wishful thinking. It's deception, pure and simple. Yes, they are the single seller of Canadian barley and that's the problem. If we had more sellers (which also means more buyers), we would have various parties competing to buy grain. That's partly what drove Cdn barley values higher until July 31 (black Tuesday).

By the way, the same thing exists for wheat. If the CWB says they control enough of the world wheat trade to squeeze buyers for a premium, that's a complete fabrication.

If there is anything to be gained from having high grain quality standards (and I'm not convinced there is), that has nothing to do with the CWB (even though they claim it is). That's the job of the CGC.

[northfarmer]

well enough of this bs...and back to the nonsensical topic at the start about forage seed and how something like the cwb would serve that industry...we farm in forage grass and forage seed production area.....the local farmer owned coops, farmer owned plant and processors and the private trade are the big players in the market here, not the traditional mulitnational grain companies that handle our grains and oilseeds....

we enjoy a competitive market where we have a choice of whom we sell to , when we sell and for what we price we like to sell at......

both local producer coops and the private trade enjoy particpating in not both a national but global market and processed product cleaned and baaged locally is sent to markets around the world.......

so Tower, Burbert, we have no wish to have the interference of any knid of state controlled monopsony type marketing activity so as to stifle the commercial and professional activites of this industry.....

our farm and many farms in our region have prospered by our ability to produce and market crops like forages and oilseeds, oats and pulses because we can do so without folks like you thinking someone government regulated authority can do it better.....