question for western producer reporters

[Guest]

can you do a story and find out if grain co's are adding dockage to China canola shipments ? and what the average dockage is in China canola shipments ? and are farmers paying to clean canola that is not getting cleaned? this whole canola dockage issue doesn't make any sense ? I am surprised you aren't already on this ???? the majority of farmers sell canola under 1.5% dockage , should be easy to clean to 1% ???

[Robertbarlage]

I think as farmers we would be better of getting very good lawyers since they charged us for cleaning I'd like my money back .

[farmaholic]

Call the Class Action King...... Merchant can sue the Merchants.
Think there'll be anything left for us?

[Robertbarlage]

As long as the message got across it would be worth it .

[PhilCNS]

Hello - not with the Western Producer, but loosely connected. I occasionally check out these threads to see what's going on, but have never registered to comment (until now). One of my coworkers was trying to write this exact story a couple of weeks ago, but ran into a larger than normal wall of grain company 'no comments' and pushed it to the backburner.

We've heard plenty of anecdotal reports about the added dockage, and it seems to be a given with all of the traders/farmers we speak with, but we have not yet tracked down any firm numbers to make an actual objective article with quoted sources. It's obviously time to revisit this story and try to get to the truth of the matter. If anyone out there in Agriville-land has some info on the dockage situation, please feel free to contact us.

Phil Franz-Warkentin
Commodity News Service (CNS) Canada
cnscanada@shaw.ca
204-414-9084

[Guest]

You should contact canola commisions for financial help. This would be a good use of our check off dollars . Good luck with your investigations. No one in government , news media or industry gives a shit about us ? Its seems simple Get a few hundred farmers to tell you their average dockage , ours is 1.27% . This will give ypu a cross section of industry. Chinese should be happy to tell what percent they are recieving . Theyre probably as pissed off as farmers

[northfarmer]

The story as I hear it is that the terminals/exporters sell on a certain spec of dockage or admix, say for example 2.5%. they add in whatever lower cost commodity or dockage that is acceptable and get the load to spec and no better. They have argued to me, and the sources I have are not on the record, that the end users are not willing to pay for cleaned and lower dockage and it is a race to the lowest price to compete. It strikes me that the whole Chinese dockage is not based on any science is pure trade politics and positioning. My knowledge on the matter is more related to bulk shipped pulses and not the other grains but similar issue.

Our canola dockage averages long term at 1.5% or less. Much of what we harvest is within export spec but we still pay for cleaning or it is incorporated in basis.

I know they buy cereals at low cost like winter wheat and oats in our area to blend back into loaded cars for profit, and sure they do the same with all commodities.

I welcome a more through investigation into this and a good place for the money to do so and support for this initiative should come from our provincial crop commissions. Forget about Canola Council, Cereals Canada and Pulse Canada as these groups are trade and grower and they will not touch with a ten foot pole.

[MBgrower]

The canola council should visit china , mexico, japan, etc when a canadian vessel is unloading and collect a sample of canola and inspect what the dockage consists off. Probably full of wheat screenings, dust pellets, etc. It would be obvious that this dockage did not originate from the farm or field. Why doesnt the council investigate these things. The sound of silence is deafening.

[redleaf]

Well I will have to say that my dockage is seldom as low as some claim ( I think it may have something to do with delivery points as I have hauled from the same bin to different points and gotten far different results but that is another can of worms). However that is not the real issue here. I have never been paid for my dockage and don't expect to be either. In fact there is always elevation and basis deductions on canola and other grains that supposedly include cost of cleaning. So it amazes me why some years ago there was a huge issue about deer and goose feces in international shipments and now a big dust up about meeting more stringent dockage levels for a huge "customer". I know the Chinese like to play games but I think the grain industry has been playing a very lucrative game of their own for a long long time. Someone else mentioned the age old practice of elevator companies buying rye but mixing it out with other grains at allowable levels. I was told this in the elevator office by a grain buyer himself.

[MBgrower]

Terminals mixing grains of lower value grains into CWRS exports is perhaps why buyers have in recent years have complained about the quality of canadian wheat. Canadian farmers were told CWRS is the best wheat in the world, we know it doesnt yield nearly as well as other wheats, but we always grow it in hopes the price premium will offset the lower yield. Yet at export the linecos garbage it up by throwing other wheats and grains into it, reducing the milling quality of the wheat, and ultimately reducing our farmgate prices as buyers may no longer pay any price premium for this now garbage wheat? I do believe we need to have a third party to monitor what is going on at these terminals.

[farmaholic]

They are called the CGC! I agree blending of classes is going fo hurt us. Take a high(er) value class and throw in some lower value class. Hard red spring and red winter.....I guess if it meets specs.....

KVD is gone and wheats have been "reclassified" , probably neither will benefit the Producer.