Global Warming

[grassfarmer]

Furrowtickler, Are "meat prices set to rise considerably" at the retail level or the farm gate? There is quite a difference!
You're telling me there are alternatives to feeding barley, wheat and corn?? no, really? I'm ahead of you there old boy as I am already producing beef off grass.

[parsley]

jensend,

Even my computer sputtered from the court results, but i have it up and running again. LOL

Issue by issue. I'll take a few at a time.

You asked me to "agree that the cwb is not the source of concentration of ownership in the grain handling and crop input sectors of grain farming.."


I will say this...the CWB is not the SOLE source. But it is the MAIN source.

If the grain handlers did not have CAPTIVE supplies....they would actually have to compete for our grain.

The input sectors thrive because the only way the farmer can make MORE dollars is through yield. Farmers do not get more money through higher prices. Yield-seekers spend more on inputs.

The second paragraph, you asked me:

"will you not agree that whether the cwb exists or not those same corps will determine the amount of risk grain farmers will be exposed to and the average margin in grainfarming?"


No I don't agree. Not because I want to be difficult, but because I simply don't agree.

I honestly think that in this day and age, there will be more end-users contracting directly with farmers. Field to processor. Farmers have to vacum out any uneccessary layer, and go as direct as we can. Organics did it, and although you may scoff at organics, there are some elements that have become mainstream.

Once farmers directly contract, or develop "associations" with end-users, whether it be co-operatively, or whether it be individually, that association is worth its' weight in gold.


You've worked with people in your community, jensend, and you know who you work well with, and also who you want to work with. Forming MANAGEABLE associations and then selling to the enduser will benefitfarmers. And if the group don't want to sell to Iraq, they don't have to. And if the lot of them want to hold their grain because they travel in the winter and want to sell in the spring, it is their decision. But the co-op to the buyer dialogue is key.

You can talk directly to the people who will tell you if your price is so high, they do not make profit and go out of business.

And you can also tell them if they don't pay YOU a certain price, you have no profit and will go out of business.

What we presently have is an institution talking to a trader who talks to an end-user.

You're the missing component.

If you want to make dollars, you need to be sitting at the table with the other three.

And it won't be slurping coffee for longlong before you'll be sitting at the table with the other two.

And I predict that more often than not, you'll be sitting having a video-conference, with the other "guy". Just the two of you.

Often, that's what we do on our farm.

It's a small world, jensend. And farmers are important. And trusted.

This week, the Ambassador of Switzerland and his wife hosted a reception and invited us. Not because we are important people, but because FARMERS are. There were lots of farmers in the room.

Farmers need to speak for themselves.

Marketing power isn't necessarily size. In terms of pocketing more money, marketing power means working harmoniously. Constantly getting a bill from NAFTA, and from court cases, and quelling dissension will make you broke.

And if you cannot understand that you cannot BEAT partners into compliance, then you have learned little about human nature.

Parsley

[bduke]

Parsely.....must say you are in fine form today....issue by issue:

captive supplies are not competitive....precisely....whether it's handling, transportation, or selling....

I agree more grain will be marketed "sample specific"....and more crops grown to end users requirements...

Relationships and the resulting trust and respect between buyers and sellers is a tried and true formula...I doubt if farmers would be adding screenings to "allowable limits" like the terminals do....especially if their neighbours weren't....and i've heard that customer's comments from container shipments have been unbelievably positive...

farmers are the missing component.....for sure...and there are lots of "professionals" looking after our businesses..... with little risk....


You can't beat partners into compliance....unless you are mandated by regulation....which should never be permitted in a "just" society...

BTW...I wasn't totally impressed by the big disc.....but I did buy an electric grease gun....Bill

[parsley]

Bill,
Thanks for validating those thoughts.

jensend,
I would agree with your conclusion, "less competition means less innovation and efficiency."

Parsley

[jensend]

some rebuttal, issue by issue:

the united states, in spite of having stronger competition laws than canada is having the same problems with concentration in various industries. it's not the cwb - it's capitalists acting like your bogeyman communists.

the cwb is irrelevant to farmers' profits because farmers are price takers on both ends of their production cycle.

partnerships and dialogue are wonderful but you are not an equal partner and have limited input if you are negotiating with someone who is one thousand times as big as you. you only have a few options if you can't work out a deal; the other party has literally thousands. they don't want to deal with equal partners and don't want competition whereas you will never be an equal partner and are in direct competition with thousands of other farmers. if they don't pay you a profitable price and you go out of business there will be somebody else who will take up their offer. if you don't like their price how many options do you have? how many grain companies are there now to deal with compared to thirty years ago.

you're right - farmers are important but individual farmers are totally unimportant. if you don't farm the land someone else will and will buy inputs and produce grain that will have to be marketed. it's been going that way for a hundred years and especially so for the last twenty years. the way the industry is structured there is only competition between individual farmers; grain companies don't compete except in very minor ways. look back to the trading of delivery points when swp took over agricore and jri was bought out of the picture with a few grain terminals so that everybody's territory was firmed up. farmers are brainwashed into believing they are the world's most innovative and efficient while the people they do business with fight tooth and nail to not be innovative and efficient. for how long should monsanto collect their tua? wouldn't some competition spur innovation? maybe there's better technology out there but the market is locked up by controlling interests. i always get a kick out of how the best farmers by the industry's estimate are those who spend the most money. i was trapped in that paradigm for too long until i figured out that the secret was to earn more money with less investment.

[parsley]

Golly, but you sound negative and bitter.


If what you say is true....


"partnerships and dialogue are wonderful but you are not an equal partner and have limited input if you are negotiating with someone who is one thousand times as big as you."

Big as in money?
Big as in members?
Big as in educated?
Big as in IQ?
Big as in land base?
Big as in army?

Whew!
Am I ever glad I din't know that.

How in the world then, did organics, for example, ever begin? How did Donkey Joe walk into General Mills and say, " I want you to look at this specially grown grain , buy it, and process it, and I want a good price."

It happened..

Do we have to be equal, or do we simply have to have a mutually beneficial goal? ..a symbiotic relationship?

jensend, I think you are back again, to your notion of size. And that goes back to your notion of forced equality.

General Mills and I are not equal. But we can benefit from each other and we can respect each other. Is that bad, in your books? I think if we're lucky, we can even like each other.

Some can,and will, take advantage. And rank you as a loser. Some never had any intention of anything else from Day One. We've all met them, and believed them, and been trashed by them, and occassionally been nearly been bankrupted by them. But you eventually learn recognize a taker.(They never ever offer to buy you even so much as a cup of coffee. My test. lol)

It happens in business arrangements throughout the world.(As well as in grade school, in frienships or in partnerships).

Good people rarely let you down. Find them.

Parsley

[jensend]

sorry - not negative and bitter but also not delusional. you're right; meet the right people and deal with them. recognize the system for how it works and deal with it. if that's the solution don't deal with the wheat board. grow something else.

[parsley]

And if Flaming et al smartmouth you to either grow organics or grow something else, your answer is......?

Parsley

[jensend]

sorry, you're the one who suggested the solution. you also haven't addressed the lack of competition in agribusiness and how it impacts farmers and their ability to profit. markets are broken, right? oh you just like to ask questions not answer them. i wonder why?

[parsley]

I'm not finished, yet. LOL. Have another piece of chocolate cake so I can finish my point.

You cannot ignore the fact that I am not forced to deal with my partenrs of choice.

Neither can you ignore that I AM forced to deal with the Wheat Board when I grow wheat or barley.And we all eventually do.

And surely, in a well-meant discussion, you are not resorting to "Well move,if you don't like it" or "Well grow something else, then"

...Although those statements are good training-material for the budding father-in-law-from-hell, they reflect the answer-of-last-resort trend you seem to fall back on.

Lack of competition:

There is a horrifying lack of competition for wheat and barley. The grain companies are all wheat and barley agents of the Wheat Board. They huddle in their offices, terrified one company negotiated a better handling package with the CWB than the other did.


If wheat was not captive in Canada, I could load it up and ship it to the buyer of my choice to the country of my choice.

I would recieve more money, and deal with a buyer of my choice. Who I respected. Nothing prevents farmers from selling canola this way, for example. Forming a co-op and shipping.

Farmers who are scared to leave home with their keyboard fingers, or their long-distance ears, or take a flight,or hop on a slow-boat-to-China, cannot expect to recieve the very top of the market. They have someone talking for them.

Many farmers are paralyzed by fear. Where does it come from?

Who constantly tells you that you do not have the ability to market? That a fax and a phone is not enough?
That experts should do it for you?

Guess!



Guess. Come on


Good


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No,jensend, it's not multinationals.

Guess again.

Parsley

[jensend]

i think when the cwb disappears marketing will not be the easy exercise you imagine. organic producers will have some options and niches that will for short periods of time be lucrative but not easy to capture. for conventional producers the new world won't be much different than the present. they'll have essentially what cattlemen have had but with a high dollar. even at today's prices by the time they position their grain somewhere in n. dakota or montana when they find someone to deal with and meet american regulations the basis will be disappointing. you saw what happened when n. dakota owned mill was going to buy canadian wheat. it will happen in spades when the cwb is gone. the cwb is irrelevant in today's world. you're the negative, bitter one who's thirty years behind the times in terms of how the world operates. you ought to take off the blinders and travel to see how it works. i was in e. germany before the wall came down and it opened my eyes. what a depressing experience but it did make me see other things about where i live, too and n. america is not perfect either.

[jensend]

mussolini described fascism as government for and by the most powerful corporate interests. take a look south.