The Saudis and the need for a wheat cartel

[bucket]

Page 29 of the western seducer says the Saudis will stop buying as much barley as it usually does because of an "unjustified surge" in prices.

I wonder it has ever said about their main exportable product - oil.

I can only pray that our marketing reps (the cwb) doesn't stand for that type of negotiation. Hopefully they are telling the saudis that the canadian producers are going to shut off the tap to maintain prices.

Two years ago I read the Russians might be interested in forming a wheat cartel. What a novel idea that would be now and the best time in history to start one.

It seems that cartels are formed when the beneficiaries (oil producers and in this case farmers) have little to lose. From this point forward the cartels could work to maintain our standard of living.

Just ask Potash, Mosaic (50% sk gov't and 50 % cargill at belle Plaine) Agrium. Their cartel is working very well.

[Hopperbin]

Potash really is in short supply and supply cannot be increased, it is an unrenewable resourse. Wheat production on the other hand can be increased to cover a shortfall, just increase price. Just seems to me to be an impossible task to form and keep operational. We don't even want our CWB. Let supply and demand sort it out.

[bucket]

Potash is not in short supply. It is whether the companies want to ramp up production. It is a controlled cartel with these companies.

This is what brings the chinese to canada to develop a new greenfield potash mine.

Phosphorus is the same way. Mosaic shutdown plants in the southern states to create a shortage to increase price.
I have no problem with profit but this is outright gouging. Phosphorus is railed back to Belle Plaine as an example and unloaded, then the cars are reloaded with potash.

These plants have unscheduled shutdowns to reduce availability of supply. I was at Mosaic when Canpotex was renogiating the supply for China. First time in Belle Plaine plant's history that rail cars and every storage facilty they have were not completely stuffed before they shut down. The new owners - Cargill.