Would CWB votes be different if voting was based on tonnes of product sold to the CWB

[charliep]

Just to clarify some of the comments, there is an opinion the Alberta domestic feed barley market doesn't function as an effective pricing mechanism? What value does the CWB provide the feed barley market in pricing signals? What benefits does the CWB provide to malt barley?

[boone]

Parsley; to be fair and I totally agree about the positive relationships that are building with direct marketing, via the internet etc. They are now and for the foreseable future will be boutique markets. The amount that is allowed under direct marketing in Ontario, last time I looked was cumulative only 150000 tonne on a first come first served basis. That is less than my local elevator handles in a year5.5mbu. for the whole province so it is fairly hard to make direct comparisons of what we could achieve. Now this may have changed but in all these points let's consider the tonnage. charlieP in a market that is 'short'(CWB)looks to have less influence, and in the past when it was 'long' they could have easily had more, and relinquished it, out of fear of causing shortages. It took them a long time to accept that feed grain in Alberta was price elastic. With regard to Malt it goes back to market developement, they do a good job, and as compared to POOLS or AGRICOREUNITED they don't own a variety so they are an 'honest broker'. (tom4,if you will allow that is used in the generic sense here).

[charliep]

Feed barley - Domestic consumption (prior to the drought years) - 10 MMT and growing with the challenge in Alberta to grow more. Chance of the CWB ever exporting feed barley again outside years of super low domestic prices is somewhere between zero and none. The issue in barley is arbitrage with outside markets and the ability to sell when export prices suggest. This will never happen in the current system (i.e. get farmers to contract based on poor market signals and then the CWB goes hunting for markets).

You will have to spend a little more time explaining your comments on malt barley. I will grant market development is a key issue. This could just as easily be handled outside the CWB. Further, the variety requirements have mainly been set by the customer. A case in point is the markets preference for herrington in spite of its agronomic problems. It is the grain companies that have brought forward and presented new varieties to customers. They are also the ones who have provided the horsepower to move barley forward from the farm (supply seed, do the selecting, segregate, get loaded on a ship.

You didn't mention price on malt barley so I will bring up. How does the CWB price to customers? Could malt barley prices to customers for similar quality/variety malt barley be sold to customers for different prices on the same day? Malt barley to a North American maltster? A Chinese maltster? A domestic malster making a sale to Japan? A domestic maltster making a sale to Brazil?

[boone]

CharlieP; it would seem to me that the influence that elevators had on varieties was always negative, the best thing that has happened for malt lately is the merger of United and Agricore which made available three strong malts under one sales and promo group. It will take a collective movement to drive Harrington away permanently. Unlike some of the varieties promoted because they had bought it. They had held up as early saviours. Harrington should be not grown without a premium over other malts. The maltprice versus feed has become a quasi-premium, and in effect has carried this variety. Agronomicaly it should be long gone. How CWB sets prices I have no idea, and if they are price discriminating they would be living up to American Expectations here. Which for all their blow, is exactly how they have and would do it. I think the next time the CWB have to defend themselves , they should uncover all the P.L. 480 pricing campaigns in The good old U.S.A., it would make good reading for some of you fellas that take an interest in the intrigues of the gain biz. Type it in your search boxes and pull up a stool, because it will uncover the ridiculousness of U.S. double standards. Maybe some old put out to pasture WCWGA directors with time on their hands could do like wise.

[henbent]

parsley, The certified organic market is a tiny drop in the bucket. Good for them, if they have been able to sell a bushel,peck or two of flax via the internet. The smoking hemp market is huge too, but its against the law to grow it or possess it without a licence. I hear that it too has been bought and sold via the net. Apparently viagra is also bought and sold on the net, but a bit of fraud is involved in that market. Boy the sky is the limit in this open market world, don't yah think. What next, feed barley yeah right!!

[TOM4CWB]

Henbent;

There are many trades on domestic feed barley specific to AB, SASK, and MB... that I see happening every day on the internet.

[parsley]

Would you agree that, "the sky is the limit in this open market world", when it came to canola, henbent? A few old farmers growing canola, developing markets, plugging away. The nerve! (With other farmers acting as armchair critics, of course.) Is canola still too small a volume for you to consider it a legitimate industry? (Comparing it to the massive volumes of CWB feed barley exports, of course.)

Do you still consider canola a boutique market, boone?

Parlsey

PS
We're waiting, henbent. Answer the question. Shall I state it again?

You're beginning to look a little like thalpenny. Remember when the questions got pointed and he couldn't answer them without looking like an idiot! He ended up looking like an idiot because he didn't answer them.

[boone]

parsley; would you consider the marketing of canola this past year a success, now I'm not talking on a personal level here. We have been growing it since the 'lift years' and we still only hit 80-85% of top. But for the industry as a whole it looks like they too were caught in the bright lights. Did you unload it all at $10.75, it felt pretty lonely around that time. The CWB must have influenced that too. Damn them.

[parsley]

The important points are:

1. You actually could have unloaded it at $10.75! If you thought wheat /barley would have provided you with the most money at the end of the day, you would never have grown canola, boone. This year, canola lights weren't bright enough for you , perhaps, but weren't they better than 15 watt wheat/barley lights? Obviously, you decided with your seeder.

2. The canola industry was born as a few so called cranks growing, "What the %$&^ is that?", to becoming a main meal provider. That initiative can be admired and repeated in other areas, or it can be criticized into the ground and remoulded into another Wheat Board exercise.....the Volumes Game.

"Volume pushers" are direct descendents from the CWB. They remain impressed with growing volumes and volumes and volumes ( "hey, Bill got 80 bush/ acre"... ......"well, Ted got 86 Bu/acre" ...... I'll bet you've heard some fantastic numbers melville!) and increasing yet more volumes, to dump on foreign markets that cannot afford to buy, so that Canada can provide them with credit to make the sale. And later it is written off as a bad debt for taxpayers.

In the meantime, criticizing niche markets, smaller volume sales, with high values, and value-adding in our communities serves as a their target for frustration. And of course volume-selling is legitimized by the so-called "value of pooling" of the sales of wheat and barley! However, the true value of pooling is quantified in a very unusual way.....by the boones and henbents of the world growing alternative crops, as boone states, "We have been growing it since the 'lift years'" Wow. Why grow canola if the CWB pools are so lucrative?

This is truly, "henbent reasoning" in its' purist form.

Parsley

[charliep]

Lee has an interesting chart that shows the percentage of time that crop prices have been above certain levels. The note is $10/bu canola and $4/bu barley rarely occurs and doesn't hang around. A lesson I learned again this past fall.

[boone]

Parsley; are you sure your a farmer some of your questions are suspect here. You know I think I finally understand your reasoning. Let me ask you a question. If you were a dentist and obeyed all the rules of dentistry. And being ambitious you went and learned how to do plastic surgery. Now would every dentist have to conform to your rules of plastic surgery. And yes we would still call you doctor. The obvious answer to your simple question is rotations. And we use them all 5 kinds of wheat flax, lentils 2kinds, 3-4 kinds not varieties of peas, 2 kinds of mustard and 3-4 varieties of canola almost every year, Malt barley, you name it we vacuum it out of something.

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie;

The principal of substitution cannot be overriden by any marketer... not even OPEC.

If my barley is worth $3.00/bu as energy, instead of as a livestock feed... we will displace oil with barley.

If a short supply of wheat creates $8.00/bu, consumers may buy it until they see rice or potato products at half the cost... the habit is broken to depend on wheat... and the wheat then must come back down in price to compete with the substitution of rice and potato.

This is why the CWB monopoly extraction theory only works to a very limited extent....

On top, if the CWB gets greedy.... and does't sell the wheat it has avaliable when the brief $8/BU is avaliable... a double wammy happens!

The price must drop enough below the substitution arbitage value, to get end use customers to switch back to wheat again, which means that a 20% lower value(than the substitution arbitrage value) may be needed to get these folks to switch back to wheat.

SO in many instances the CWB extraction of higher prices can actually be counter productive... CASE IN POINT... what has happened in the last six months!

[boone]

CharlieP; that lesson will be discussed to death for the next while. But it closely resembles the new world order and valuations of the Technology bubble. If you think it's tough on you, how about us guys who saw wheat at $6.00 for the first time in early 1970's and canola at 9.98 and flax at 14.00, everyone wants to believe we are going to permanently break out of a price range that has not reflected a proper return on investment. That would be the equivalent of receiving $30.00 per bu of wheat today and $37. for Canola in constant dollars.

[henbent]

parsley, It is obvious that you have the answers to the questions and are in fact a legend in your own mind. GMO canola may have burst the bubble in this hard earned market. People/consumers, don't want the damn stuff, in their food and if you don't believe that then you are a fool or a Monsanto stooge not a farmer!

[charliep]

I hear both your concerns about price and new technology. There are still profitable farms however both reflecting good management and some government support (not saying adequate but it is there).

Just to remind you of the twins that were sent to see their birthday present in the barn only to see a pile of horse manure. One got really aggrevated that their parents would do this to them. The other looked for the pony.

My pony is I see new markets for our crops being developed every day. Many of these markets will be here at home in western Canada. Our challenge is to grow enough product to meet this demand. Cases in point - canola, barley, feed peas, milling wheat, etc., etc..