David Schnell WB District # 8 Candidate

[parsley]

Who I Am
I am a working producer who has experienced the same sorts of challenges and opportunities as other farmers in Western Canada. My wife Kathy and I have been farming in the Lampman area since 1965, while raising three children. Following a farm accident in 2006, necessity downsized our 8,500 acre operation to 1600 acres.

[parsley]

Why Am I Running
From 1998 to 2000 I was the chair of the Prairie Pasta Producers group. We had a vision to add value to our durum wheat. We planned to build a pasta plant in southeast Saskatchewan which was strongly supported by both farmer-investors and marketing groups, but the
Canadian Wheat Board would not support the project.

Instead, time and again, the Board stood in the way and made the pasta plant dream impossible. I firmly believe the Prairie Pasta initiative would have helped our local farms and our rural communities, but the CWB
created barriers which made this impossible. I believe we should have the choice to add value to our grain.
Giving farmers more opportunities to add value to their grain is one of the main reasons I have decided to run as a
Canadian Wheat Board director in this fall’s CWB election.

I advocate farmers being provided with more opportunities to sell their grain. They should have the opportunity to sell it without going through the CWB, or they should be able tohave the opportunity to sell it to the CWB – in other words, they should have the right to choose what’s best for their farm.

[parsley]

My Qualifications
I have always been active on the ground level with issues that matter to farmers:
• Chair of the Southeast Transportation Planning Committee since 1998, which represents 27 rural municipalities in southeast Saskatchewan
• Reeve of the Rural Municipality of Browning from 1988 - 2007
• President Southeast Saskatchewan Rural Municipality Association 1995-2000

I have also been active in my community
through various community organizations:
• Board member of the Lampman Community
Health Centre
• Volunteer ambulance driver
• Member of the Lions Club and Knights of Columbus

I am humbly proud to have my efforts at
building and advancing our rural areas
appreciated and recognized by the communities

I am associated with, and often represent:
I was named Farmer of the Year by the Estevan Chamber of Commerce in 1995. In 2006 I received the Saskatchewan Centennial Medal.
In 2007, I received a Saskatchewan Municipal Award for community leadership in providing a primary weight corridor linking Highway 39 to
Highway 9.

[parsley]

My Vision for the CWB’s Future -CHOICE
I believe, first and foremost, that no oneunderstands the value of a crop better than the producer who grew it. All of us in the agriculture sector have learned to be savvy marketers for
other commodities we produce, including canola,oats, lentils and livestock. We even have the marketing skill to sell our own organic wheat and
barley.
We also constantly hear that “the CWB cannot survive without the single desk.” This is nonsense and cynical fear-mongering. There will always be a role for a strong CWB as the marketing tool of choice for those farmers who
choose to pool their grain. But the key word is “choice”.

[parsley]

Farmers today want to take full advantage of the value-added opportunities for wheat and barley,
but the CWB steps in the way of those
opportunities, just as it did with Prairie Pasta.
Just as we have seen more value-added
industries, such as canola and oats, arise in recent years, I firmly believe that a choice environment will create similar advances in wheat and barley.
The CWB’s current monopoly environment does not allow the freedom that entrepreneurs require to lead this industry forward, nor has it provided
an environment of systems working together in harmony, as does Ontario. As a director, I would work hard to change this, in tandem with working towards a spirit of good will.
I would be honored to represent the voters in the CWB district #8, and I ask for your support, and your vote.

[parsley]

If you want to see a picture of him and his tractor, go to my blog:

http://parsleysnotebook.blogspot.com/

He's pretty darn good to look at, too.

Parsley

[chuckChuck]

If David Schnell had been serious about building a Pasta business he would have left the politics out of it. What serious business development project goes around trying to seek investors with their anti CWB politics out in front, alienating CWB supporters which could have made up a large percentage of the potential investors?

By the way, at the time when David was out politicking with Prairie Pasta there was fierce competition in the North American pasta business from overcapacity and imports. Nobody was building extra plants especially at a distance from the majority of consumers on the east or west coast. This was not a viable business proposal. It was a politically motivated special interest group pretending they had a business plan so they could criticize the CWB. If it had been a viable business to maufacture pasta on the prairies in the heart of durum country then numerous companies would have already been doing it.

[Kodiak]

Hey Rod is that you? You are pretty good at reciting the CWB's speaking notes aren't you?

By the way, have you got your CWB nomination papers filed yet? You only have until Monday. Maybe you'll get more vote than the 10% you captured in the Federal election.

[parsley]

David Schnell knows politics well judging by all the different municipal bodies he has worked with, and successfully worked with, I might add. He gets the job done. Except with the CWB. They were the ones holding back the success of a value-added business in Southeast Saskatchewan. As well, he is open, and visible and accountable. How about you? Who are you to snipe from under the umbrella of a pseudonymn? And what have you accomplished?

Who are you to judge what is a viable business plan or not? Prairie Pasta could well have been manufacturing organic pasta by now. But then I suppose, as did the CWB, you would have told organics they would be a flop, that organics promised zero viability, and organics' projects should be dismissed, of course,.... followed by wanting to take them over in order to get a cut of the action.

Often chuck, your credibility is reduced by your complete absence of reason, but it's hard to assess, because both are overshadowed by your estimated intelligence score.

Parsley

[chuckChuck]

Parsley,If you hadn't noticed, The pasta plant that was marketing specialty and organic pasta at Crosby ND is gone. David Schnell and most of his bretheren don't support nor take organic seriously so I doubt that he would have supported an organic pasta project.

The large conventional Carrington ND plant is still operating. They started long before Prairie Pasta when there was good marketing opportunities and were successful because of a marketing program tied to in part to the school lunch programs in the US.

I get back to my original point. Politics should not be part of a business plan. It is generally bad for business to be overtly political when you are out asking for investors or support from the general public. You can blame the CWB if you want, but there was alot of other business factors that would have prevented this idea from going ahead.

Some of the large grain companies with a lot more resources did analysis on pasta plants and decided they couldn't make it work here.

Since the Conservatives are subsidizing ethanol investment, why don't you ask them to subsidize a Pasta Plant? Oh, I forgot you don't support government interference in the affairs of the free market.

[Fransisco]

LOL, you monopolists really know how to make me chuckle. One of the main reasons for making the wheat board voluntary is to get the politics out of the grain trade. Anything to do with wheat or malting barley is always political precisely because of the single desk.

[parsley]

Saskatchewan has a lot of organic growers.Chuck, since you want to tell them how to run their business, what to build, and how to value-add, put in your application to the Canadian Wheat Board. They're trying hard to assume the role you obviously lust for and wish to monopolize...telling other people what to do.

If the CWB were not a political entity, legislated into force, run by a Minister, and providing tickets for Liberal fundraisers, a small group of Saskatchewan farmers could have long ago, gone about their business and built their communities.

However, all DA farmers, not just organic, have a political green giant latched on that wakens every time a venture is proposed.

Some of the big companies that did an analysis on organics now buy organics, unless you call General Mills, for example, who keep a seat warm on the MGEX, small potatoes.

The CWB hires staff that gleans information from organic farmers so they can then advise organic farmers. That's the level of competence in stock, and nothing brighter is being manufactured.

And no, I don't want Government owning or building or running an organic plant, because I would be the last one to ever ever recommend the Chucksters as capable management.

[parsley]

And one other thing, chuck. Schnell encourages and acknowledges, "We even have the marketing skill to sell our own organic wheat and barley."

He wrote it, himself. Schnell believes in FARMERS

On the other hand,the CWB has expropriated the organic industry. THE BOARD BELIEVES ONLY IN ITSELF.

Parsley

[chaffmeister]

chuckChuck:

If you knew anything about Prairie Pasta and/or the processing industry, you’d know that it was all about politics – <b>thanks to the CWB</b>.

Mr. Schnell and Prairie Pasta knew full well of the overcapacity in the pasta industry at the time. That’s why they were looking at <b>buying</b> rather than building capacity. (Borden Foods had three plants for sale at the time – Lethbridge, Montreal and St. Louis. They would have been a great fit for Prairie Pasta.)

Connecting processing directly to farmers was (and still is) the way of the processing industry – all processors are actively pursuing this and Prairie Pasta knew it. Not being able to control the full value chain would have been a serious commercial and competitive impediment for Prairie Pasta in this new environment, all politics or marketing philosophies aside. There’s a reason why we aren’t seeing investment in wheat or barley processing in Canada, even by the major processors. (Take note of the malting industry in particular.)

When maltsters tell the CWB and the Federal Government that they will not invest another dime in malt processing in Canada <b>because of the involvement of the CWB</b>, are they any different than Prairie Pasta?

Why would Prairie Pasta be any different just because they’re farmers? Why do you think Prairie Pasta was politicizing this when they were just pursuing what everyone else in the business was doing at the time? The only difference was they were Western Canadian farmers first, their geographic options were limited and they had to get permission from the CWB.

Why do you think Barilla built the world’s largest pasta plant in Ames, Iowa and not in Moose Jaw, SK? Why would they get locked into an unfeasible arrangement with the CWB by locating in Canada when, from Ames, IA, they can source directly from American farmers as well as from the CWB?

You fail to mention that, later on, Prairie Pasta negotiated with Dakota Growers in Carrington, ND in a bid to be the Canadian arm of Dakota Growers. (Again, take note – <b>buying</b> into current capacity rather than building new.) At first the CWB gave this arrangement the nod, even coming up with a New Generation Coop policy that would have facilitated it. But when it came right down to it (at the last minute), the CWB backed down and refused to allow it.

Your comment “Nobody was building extra plants especially at a distance from the majority of consumers on the east or west coast” tells a lot about your understanding of the processing sector. Carrington, North Dakota; Grand Forks, North Dakota; Minot, North Dakota (milling); Spokane, Washington; Ames, IA. Not real close to the “majority of consumers”, are they? That idea is so old it’s got grey hair.

Using your logic about proximity to consumers, could you explain how we can export durum to Italy and import pasta back to Canada? Those plants in Italy aren’t real close to their Canadian consumers are they?

If the CWB was really working for the Canadian farm sector, it would be actively supporting, pursuing and assisting the development of processing in Canada with the goal of becoming net exporters of pasta, beer, and cookies, instead of durum, barley and wheat.

Are you aware that flour imports into Canada are growing? Multinational millers here are grinding less in Canada and importing from their own plants in the US instead. What does that tell you about the investment environment in Canada?

Anybody who thinks the CWB supports domestic processing in Canada hasn’t got a clue about what’s really going on.

To have David Schnell, who understands this concept only too well, on the board of directors of the CWB would be a very good thing indeed. It's people like David who have the knowledge, experience and capacity to turn the CWB into a forward thinking, true farm organization.

If I could, I'd surely vote for him.

[mbratrud]

David will be getting my vote. A comment like Politics has no part in a business plan is laughable.. Get real this whole CWB is nothing but politics. Why is eastern Canada working with different rules..
Last time I looked there are several small mills in Ont and Que. You don't think that has been brought about over the last several decades because of policy your kidding yourself.

My farm business plan is directly effected by politics ie. CWB, The Green Shift, I could go on.