Shorts

[jensend]

i feel like i'm talking to yoda. when you find that market for twenty-five dollar barley let me know (you don't have to share specifics, i'll take your word for it) but please let me know how big a volume it is and how long it lasts. i started talking about sustainability and get called (of course) a socialist and depressing and whatever else. i'll quit mocking you now but c.p. has it pretty much right. if you want to avoid some of the issues facing the industry i'll back off. mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

[parsley]

Your words jensend:

"it seemed to me when i was grainfarming i was always trying to sell product to mostly lower income countries" piqued my curiosity.

I am a little slow, jensend, so perhaps I'll reverse the 2 questions to make them clearer:

Which product? Which countries?

Parsley

Since you no longer farm, you will have the time to answer.

[jensend]

i don't grain farm anymore but that was never our only enterprise anyway. remember when canada targetted sales of grains to china and india before they were on their way to becoming economic powerhouses. what did we get for malt barley sold to china? seems to me that was a market of last resort and not very lucrative. india never was regarded as a premium market either. i am glad to see grain farmers having not a good but a great year; we all know the equity that has been lost over the last decade especially. i raised the issue of the future and you and your acolytes want to jump all over me so be it. doesn't mean the issues won't have to be dealt with. you haven't addressed those issues, you just haul out the old socialist label right away. i can assure you that you have not figured me out at all; i would suspect i have travelled more than you give me credit for and i have been educated in a couple of different professional fields and i started buying land and farming almost forty years ago. there, now you know more than you did - want to address the issue of price sustainability and how primary producers can capture an equitable portion of the profit in the value chain? clue - the cwb is only a minor part of the problem.

[parsley]

Ahhh.......so when you claimed:

"it seemed to me when i was grainfarming i was always trying to sell product to mostly lower income countries"

what you REALLY meant to say was:

"it seemed to me when i was grainfarming **the CWB*** was always trying to sell product to mostly lower income countries"

Different discussion altogether, jensend.

1. My point has always been that farmers are interested in their farms to make money for themselves, and their families.

The CWB is interested in only THEMSELVES.

Parsley

[jensend]

divert to the cwb all you want, that was where the market was at the time or do you know better. now address the issues i brought up.

[parsley]

Price sustainability for the producer has not been maintained in the present Government marketing system of wheat and barley, hence the urgent need for change.

CHANGE.



We cannot go down that path you complain about, jensend.

Hence I want change.

Parsley

[jensend]

blah blah blah cwb blah blah blah

[silverback]

That was very mature J.

Going back to your first post here, the only thing I can take from it is that you feel that having higher prices is a bad thing. Is that correct?

Or are you saying that it would be better if prices are to rise that they only rise a little bit? Who will decide the proper level of price increase?

I am not sure you are watching at the moment since you are not a producing farmer, but the world price for wheat and barley is way higher than what our forced pooling masters think we should receive. I guess this fact makes you happy?

Do you believe that a farmer in ND that is going to be able to sell his wheat at the highest price in generations is doomed to be blasted out of existence because he captured those high prices?

Do you think it is better to have long term debt sitting on the books and not getting paid off in a really good year?

I also don't understand how you can argue that asking small, poorer countries to actually pay the world price for grain is a bad thing? Funny how they are managing to pay for it right now. Do you favor asking different prices in different countries for the same wheat? Who actually gets to decide if that is good policy for the farmers who produced it? If we sold wheat to China and India 15 years ago at less than market value was that smart? They seem to be doing pretty good right now, maybe they will pay more than market value this year if we ask nicely.

[parsley]

Paraphrase from your words:

1. Grain was never your enterprize.

2. You don't farm anymore.

Yet, you seem eager to defend single desk marketing. Hmm.

You remind me of that agrologist from BC who pops up at every meeting all over the country/in every newspaper, constantly spouting the CWB mantra.

Time could be well-spent if there is a pool-account dollar beckoning.

Parsley

[Hopperbin]

Canola went vertical down this morning.
Not closed yet but creeping up a bit.
Sorta makes the farmers nervous if one has lots to price yet. Is it just a blip? Could easily gain or lose a couple dollars per bushel at the momment.