More freedom in manitoba

[may-be]

Manitoba fishermen can sell their catch to anyone they choose now...A few years ago a fisherman was asking me what I thought about the CWB because he hated the fish board so much. He said without it he could (a) get more (b) sell to a guy that would start a new fish plant. The guy told him he would give them the same price but they would not have to fillet them anymore. They would also get paid for some of the fish they are currently throwing away. He was saying that all that we are currently wasting was worth quite a bit in the US as organic fertilizer.... Or maybe this was another fish story

[burnt]

Sounds like a win-win.

it's pretty challenging to regulate your way into prosperity...

[sumdumguy]

What's happening in Manitoba? That's too much freedom for the masses.

[grassfarmer]

Heard a fisherman interviewed about this yesterday on the radio - he was looking forward to right away his fish being worth 2 or 3 times as much. New markets, buyers beating their way to his door, would be able to sell all of his production at the top of the market via the internet. Yep, we'll see how it works out in reality. Sounded so familiar to the CWB debate.

[may-be]

Heard a fisherman interviewed about this yesterday on the radio - he was looking forward to right away his fish being worth 2 or 3 times as much. New markets, buyers beating their way to his door, would be able to sell all of his production at the top of the market via the internet. Yep, we'll see how it works out in reality. Sounded so familiar to the CWB debate.

Was that CBC radio? The guy I talked to would be so happy if he did not have to fillet his fish for the same money. Getting paid for the off fish would also be a nice Christmas bonus. Knowing the waste is being used and not thrown out would also make a person feel better.

Maybe this guy on the radio you heard has some different visions. For example I can go to someone's place and buy grass fed beef. A guy I buy bison meat from also sells the sculls and hide. I can buy organic produce or meat etc...choice is great being a buyer or seller in my opinion.

[grassfarmer]

I've had many conversations with my dairy farming friends in Scotland over the years too. Milk prices were around 17 p per litre in the early 90's when talk turned to getting rid of the Milk Marketing Boards. The young ambitious guys were promised contracts as high as 25p per litre if they would promise to supply the milk processors once the Boards had been dismantled. Cue rapid debt fuelled expansion by these young ambitious farmers and their wilful collaboration with the processors in hastening the demise of the Milk Marketing Boards.
Turn the clock forward to 2016 and many of these same guys with their huge herds have been forced to quit milk production with prices often below the 17p per litre of the early 90's and as low as 11 per litre if you don't have an aligned contract. Prices the same or lower than they were getting 25 years ago but with 2016 costs.
Hopes and dreams are nice but I'm too old to believe in fairy stories that everything will magically be transformed the day you gain something called "marketing freedom". Marketing strength through farmer co-operation offers so much potential in a time of huge concentration in the processing and retailing businesses. It is wrong to dismiss this potential based on wishful thinking about what the future might bring and half truths about how poorly it has served in the past.

[may-be]

Grass...WOW those guys must sure have been shitty at running things to have guys want to get rid of their milk board. I do not think you would find one dairy farmer in Canada that would want our milk board dismantled. It would not be their choice. Was it in Scotland?

In our small fish industry you are allowed to only catch so much per season so the stocks don't contract to much. Totally different story here... Have you seen the price of frozen pickerel fillets at the store? If a guy took his catch to town and sold them himself he could easily get 2 times more and the customer would get a fresher product for half the price. I make a trip once a year to buy fish directly from a fish plant to know this.

Would it not be communism if we all had to sell what ever we have only to a board at their set price?

[grassfarmer]

Grass...WOW those guys must sure have been shitty at running things to have guys want to get rid of their milk board.

No, that's the whole point - they just thought it was being run poorly. However "shitty" they thought it was being run it was still giving them prices higher than the "free market" is bringing them 25 years later!

I do not think you would find one dairy farmer in Canada that would want our milk board dismantled. It would not be their choice. Was it in Scotland?

Totally different systems - there was no element of supply management in Scotland. The Milk Boards had a lot more in common with the CWB. Collectively marketing product on behalf of the producer. There was pressure from the European Union to dismantle such marketing agencies so that we could all become one Euro superstate.

In our small fish industry you are allowed to only catch so much per season so the stocks don't contract to much. Totally different story here... Have you seen the price of frozen pickerel fillets at the store? If a guy took his catch to town and sold them himself he could easily get 2 times more and the customer would get a fresher product for half the price. I make a trip once a year to buy fish directly from a fish plant to know this.

Lot of guys thought they were going to get twice as much for their wheat too - how's that going?
It's great to dream but it is also unrealistic to use stories like this to imply that all fish producers could get 4 times as much for their fish if they just remove the fish marketing board. It creates opportunities for people like Klause that want to sell by the container load direct to customers to add value. The general price of wheat for commodity sellers isn't going to triple or quadruple though as farmers are still selling to the same handful of corporations/families who have controlled the grain trade in N America for over 100 years. Only now you are negotiating with them as individuals instead of through a farmers collective marketing agency.

Would it not be communism if we all had to sell what ever we have only to a board at their set price?

No, I believe that by definition under communism all means of production are owned in common. If you own the land and the machinery and make the decisions about growing the crops and then market them through a farmer's collective marketing agency that is not communism by any stretch of the imagination.

One thing for sure all the time and effort spent on the "for" and "against" campaigns on the CWB and the Milk Boards in Scotland would have been better spent improving, revolutionising these marketing agencies so that they worked better for farmer's interest. For that not to have happened ultimately is the the real tragedy.

[may-be]

Its your world grassy and we just live in it.

[Bootances]

Same lame ass arguments that never pan out much like the CWB debate.

Just because you have the internet doesn't mean shit.

[may-be]

Same lame ass arguments that never pan out much like the CWB debate.

Just because you have the internet doesn't mean shit.

I never argue without reason.

[sumdumguy]

At least today I don't have to wait 18 months for my few crumbs.

[stonepicker]

I think the biggest problem that you and some others have with a free market grassfarmer is jealousy. You don't like seeing others work hard and prosper, after all that's what socialism is all about ( everbody getting the same no matter how hard you work ) You seem to think in a world depressed wht. market that some how the--- could miraculously get a better price than everyone else. Collective marketing only works if you have a captive buyer. Like the dairy industry in canada.

[grassfarmer]

I think the biggest problem that you and some others have with a free market grassfarmer is jealousy. You don't like seeing others work hard and prosper, after all that's what socialism is all about ( everbody getting the same no matter how hard you work )

The biggest problem I have with the "free market" is I realise the concept is an illusion. What would I be jealous of with your free market stonepicker? the fact that after 25 years it was giving the farmer less money for his product than was achieved through collective marketing?

You like to stereotype people to support your weak case but what makes you think I haven't worked hard and prospered? What an insult to all our forbearers that built the prairie pools and the milk marketing boards and other farmer collective marketing agencies to suggest they didn't work hard or prosper.

You seem to think in a world depressed wht. market that some how the--- could miraculously get a better price than everyone else.

Oh, so now it's a world depressed wheat market to blame - something that the CWB detractors denied existed in previous times. All the windbags like SF3 that were going to haul their wheat across the US border and get twice as much for it every time as they were getting under the CWB. You are discovering now what the smart people knew all along - there is no way to miraculously get a better price than everyone else. The guys with their "fish marketing freedom" will find out the same in time. Best chance of capturing a stable and viable return over the long haul is through collective marketing.

Collective marketing only works if you have a captive buyer. Like the dairy industry in canada.

I thought you guys always argued the CWB was a captive buyer? That must mean that collective marketing did in fact work well under the CWB?

[stonepicker]

The --- was never a buyer of grain. They sold our grain and gave us what they owed us over the next one and a half years. Time to move on grass farmer, quit wanting other people to have to do what you feel is best. Isn't a democracy all about freedom of choice? Time to go to work.