Farmers get blamed again

[brian99]

Just read an article in the local paper. Said flour costs had gone from $10/bag to $26/bag. A rise of $160%! They blamed it on Minneapolis futures(which of course we have no REAL access to, but I won't go there....much) saying the futures went up from $5/bushel to $12/bushel. That's a rise of $140%. We're not getting $12. Probably $9/bushel. That's an 80% rise.
First question, what's the value of wheat in a loaf of bread? My old brain seems to recall 5 to 7 cents worth of wheat in each loaf. That sound right? Why does a loaf of bread need to go up a buck when flour costs have risen, say double wheat price (just a guess)14 cents times 140%. That's 20 cents a loaf.
Second question,why are we putting up with this crap? Is every middleman down the line making double the wheat market move in extra profits? And then claiming to be hard done by, about to go broke, blah,blah, blah? That's the gist of numerous news stories I've heard over the past month. How high a loaf of bread is now and it's all the wheat farmers fault.
We just went through this with beef and BSE; the packer is gouging, no it's the retailer, on and on ad nauseum until the consumer got bored. Forgive me if I'm ranting. Maybe farmers groups need to do some news interviews themselves exposing this fraud.

[SASKFARMER3]

read a simular article in the Calgary Herald. One bakery that charges $4.00 a loaf will be raising their prices due to the cost of flour. Customer says she will stop buying bread due to the high costs - yet drives away in a big SUV (well most likely!!)
Local small town Co-op yesterday, plain white sliced bread $1.15 a loaf. Guess we have an advantage not living in the big cities now don't we!!
Erik

[cottonpicken]

Welcome to the magical world of stagflation.

Our current speed about 12%.

If you have money in the bank making 6% your only losing 6% a year.

[dalek]

Same story here on the weekend. Baker gets his flour in 20 ton loads, they're putting his price up double over what it was a year ago. So he's crying that he has to charge double for his bread because he pays double for flour, puts his price up EXACTLY double.

Ummm.... yeah, like 100% of his cost of producing bread is the price of flour. Did his labour costs double? Hydro? Rent? Phone bill? So where's the rest of the money he added to the price of the bread going? And what's the chance that he's going to cut his prices when wheat tanks? Same thing goes for the flour miller on all accounts, I'm sure their TOTAL costs haven't come close to doubling.

Sent a letter to the editor, haven't seen it published yet but we'll see.

[jrkfarms]

The average baker makes 56 loaves of bread from a bag of flour. I will leave the math to you at $9.00 per bushel. All mills in the designated area pay the coast price for a bushel of wheat and than add anywhere from $2 to $4.00 for milling. Smaller bakeries who take small quantities of flour in 20.0 kg bags have seen there prices jump from $10 to $25.00 per bag. Perhaps the question should be is where does all the money go payed by DA farmers to get the grain to the coast and the money the mills also pay as the coast price. Any baker that I deliver to is raising there prices but on average they are not $1.00 per loaf. It is an easy way ti raise prices and blame the farmer as we dont get the ear of the media

[dalek]

Interesting. This guy was getting 20 ton loads of flour from ADM, I think from Ohio, now at 85 cents/kg delivered in Central Ontario.

[furrowtickler]

It is in feiry tale land, as in gone with the wind. D/A farmers will never see this historical price for any grains under the CWB. But we will/have with canola, peas, canary, oats, mustard....
Oh yes but the average, yes the average!

[LWeber]

Durum:

Check here:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y4391E/y4391e0g.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y4391E/y4391e0b.htm&h=431&w=800&sz=8&hl=en&start=1&um=1&t bnid=ueLhNpsIrS1v8M:&tbnh=77&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAlgeria%2Bdurum%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26 sa%3DG

[hoppsing]

jrkfarms, Sorry, but you have a serious misunderstanding of CWB pricing. They just use the coast as a common pricing point. So if they value the grain at an inland point, they add freight to take it to the coast. There is no extra money going into some hole. This seems to be a very common misunderstanding. The CWB should just quote prices by delivery point or hide the freight and other deductions in the basis as is done with non-boards. The old CWB could save themselves some grief if they did this.
But they are too honest!

[parsley]

The hole is called stress leave bonuses, Liberal fundraisers, exercise rooms at the CWB, and on and on.

How soon we forget, hoppsing.

Parsley