CWB hosting meetings to gain Input.

[boone]

Sorry about the double post, but I have a mouse that stutters.

[parsley]

boone

It would appear that you are one who thinks that if a farmer, (instead of the the so-called experts) markets his own grain, you would consider that "peddling". You certainly try to make it sound denigrating, and it reflects your attitude towards the thousands of purebred livestock breeders who "peddle" their breeding stock around the world. And put cash in their pockets.

Good thing all Western farmers aren't hobbled with the single-desk paradym. They's all be huddled in the commune waiting for their final CWB payment.

Parsley

[charliep]

The issue comes down to there are farmers who grow a more specialized product and are wanting to market this product directly. This may not be within your business plan/interests.

The current buyback system makes the CWB pricing system very transparent in that the farmer knows what they have paid for their wheat under the producer direct sales and what they have sold for in the outside market. They remain at risk for the final payment and the impact this has on total returns. would encourage every farmer to do this at least once (try a "B") as an educational experience to understand what the system asks direct marketers to do.

Realizing this will not satisfy all but the move to daily pricing could potentially some of the issues around producer direct sales/export licences. To do this, the producer pricing options would have to reflect actual daily market prices and not a advance payment that reflects the expected blend and timing of sales during the year .

[wbrower]

Today I recieved a response from Shirley McClellan, to a letter I had written to The Premier of Alberta concerning the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly. In this letter she says "Our analysis has shown that US farmers often do receive better prices on the spot market than western Canadian farmers are able to get through the CWB. The Alberta Grain Commission(AGC) is doing an assessment and analysis of prices in Montana and plans to publish Montana prices on their website....(www.agric.gov.ab.ca/agc)... She goes on to to suggest "With the change in the federal cabinet, we have an opportunity to raise the profile of this issue and achieve the results we need."

Maybe Mr Speller or Mr. Alcock can explain just why it is that their Canadian Wheat Board monopoly returns about one Canadian dollar less to western Canadian farmers than Grain companies pay farmers in Montana.

[charliep]

Just as a note on the buy back, anyone who exported wheat directly in the fall of 2002 paid an extremely high price for wheat through the buy back process and like everyone recieved no final payment. A lot of pain. With the exception of people who were lucky enough to book basis and convert to a fixed price contract in the fall of 2002, most people have been at the bleeding edge of change using the producer pricing options.

I am supportive of change in CWB producer pricing options. The question is how far this change goes to reflecting markets versus a full advance on pooled price or a change to the point where there is a full market price signal outside the CWB/pooling.

[parsley]

charliep,

You seem to think doing the buyback is exporting directly. It isn't.

Doing a buyback means selling my grain to the CWB. This means a legal change of ownership of my grain to the CWB. Exporting it means I must first become a grain buyer. I must legally purchase Wheat Board grain if I want to sell anything at all. Not for me.

In the 26 August/99 Western Producer article, now-CWB Director Rod Flaman brought this very issue to court and his statement of claim stated, "It would appear that the license application is arbitrarily denied unless the applicant is willing to first sell to the CWB Corporation that very grain which he wishes to export"

I don't want to twiddle and tinker with daily prices, or designing new pricing options or streamlining the buyback procedure. They simply result in more staff. I don't want to buy Wheat Board grain, charliep. I want to market my grain. I

With a simple export license, and a marketing course from all the bull-marketers in Western Canada, I can peddle, (as boone says), my grain. And folks like wbrower won't have to ask the Alcock's of the world where his $$$ went anymore.

Parsley

[TOM4CWB]

CHarlie;

Since the last PPO numbers showed the CWB extracted over $.70/bu on the basis... this is a very small concession...

Crusher;

Art Macklin, Butch Harder, Ian McCreary, and Bill Nicholson are just a few of the elected Directors who voted to stop CWB Director's from using PPO's in marketing their CWB grain... along with many of the appointed Directors.

This was pure self interest on the part of these CWB Directors in preventing cash pricing options (that work reasonably well)... for if these same folks were required to ONLY use Fixed Price and Basis contracts... we would have had many of these PPO problems resolved years ago...

These CWB Directors have a vested interest in stopping transparent prices from being offered to farmers. THey themselves do not believe there would be a CWB to provide a pay check... if daily direct transparent pricing were avaliable to "designated area" farmers who market through the CWB.

[boone]

parsley etal I'm not here to denigrate anyone but you know it get's a little tiring when I see players who only see how the market seems to short them. Last year Tom4 and more spoke about how Ontario get's special treatment that was true but measure the tonnage and you realize the insignificance of setting policy based on a miniscule market. You know many years ago I asked a lady that had been smuggled out of mainland China, to Hong Kong (1957) who was very free market oriented (no pun) why Tinamen square happened and she said in a very pragmatic way. At some point the government is responsible to the majority regardless of how unpalatable it is. And this comes back to me when I see some of the responses on this string. We'll get there, (like China) but don't be led, lead. I see brokers with a lot of self interest championing the cause of change. They are under some dillusion that they will have one of the BIG mansions in Winnipeg like pre CWB days. Ain't going to happen.

[parsley]

boone.

No wonder you have a tired mind when Tom4CWB tells you that the CWB extracted over $.70/bu on the basis. $.70/bu!!! No transparency. No item on the audited sheet. Just virtual extraction. And you are grinning-satisfied.

boone, the government IS, as you quote, responsible to the majority regardless of how unpalatable it is.... and that includes following the law. The CWB do NOT follow the CWB Act, but I'm sure you'll turn your blind-single-desk-eye when your argument doesn't suit your cause.

Never mind that the CWB are taking money out of the pooling accounts to pay for the exporting-licensing costs of: corporations, feed mills, Ontarians, Quebecors, seedgrowers, etc.(How much will we eventually find comes out of our poooling accounts/bus. for this tom4CWB?).

Never mind that the CWB refuses to give a Western farmer an export license unless he sells his grain to the Board. (Maybe the Directors should make a policy to issue an individual license ONLY if the Western farmer annually submits a C$500.00 Liberal donation. Maybe then you'd wake up and squawk).

As for leading or being led....The CWB leads all of us with the threat of jail. Some business partner. Certainly the Act requires farmers to sport a license at the borders, but the Act doesn't require us to hand over money to get the license, nor to give the Board a bag of diamonds to get a license. They are right out of Parliament's line, and you want to tinker with the small stuff.

boone, dealing with the big corps requires you to be at your best, but if they are less than legal, you have the option of 1. court or 2. taking your business elsewhere. Not so with the Board. They are the only game in town because they will not issue me a license.

Mansions? You'll be relieved they've all moved out of the West or out of the country and into Ontario/or USA. All those flour mills thriving throughout the West WAS an irritation for so many. Now we can point and say, "Those bas.......don't have more than I do" Equality for the masses, right?

We replaced everything with one big single desk. Good thing we got rid of the employment in each community, and the value-adding, too. Is there anything worse than decadent richness in our communities? We taught those big corporations a lesson. We chased them all out, unhinged nearly every corporate headquarters we could attack, from huge mills in the bread-basket of Western Canada, driving them out straight to the East or into the USA, and boy did we teach them a lesson. Who's left that we can drive a stake into their greedy corporate heart? We certainly are left with ourexpert-marketing CWB employees.

Tell me who gets the best deal boone. The CWB employees or you? They WORK FOR YOU, in theory, but who makes the most money, who has the best benefit plan and who has the best pension?

I know, I know, boone. I concede. You've got your final payment.

Parsley

[TOM4CWB]

Boone;

The Cargill/Conagra/ADM's of this world Absolutely LOVE the CWB... and make massive amounts of money that flows directly out of Canada...

So Mansions made from milling/processing wheat trading are instead taken from the basis the CWB gives to these people... a steady flow out of this country...

One Big reason Volumes of milling/processing wheat consumption have increased so much in Canada (35%) VS the US (15%(the CWB's #'s)) in the past 10 years...

Is BECAUSE of the CWB;

The CWB is providing a CHEAPER more secure supply of milling/processing wheat to these processors... than can be accessed south of the 49th.

AND when we look at the buy-up of our wheat milling/processing industry... the numbers are staggering... how well the likes of ADM/Conagra have done by the CWB.

Playing the CWB's game is obviously more profitable than we can imagine for these folks...

They have worked very hard... and deserve to have become rich by adapting to our CWB's game... I do not take this wealth creation right/ability away from them at all. We have ALLOWED this to happen... they have simply followed our game plan... and turned it to their own advantage.

But don't tell me that the CWB is going to save either our souls or our farms...

Individual responsibility and accountability are the keys...

Which is WHY the CWB as it is today will FAIL... the CWB structured as it is... cannot provide the results you are asking the CWB to provide.

[Incognito]

Mansions....u left wing whackos crack me up.

Minneapolis gained and Winnipeg lost...if you can read more than the diatribe that flows from www.nfu.com, check to see how Minneapolis flourished and Winnipeg floundered sinced the inception of the CWB.

Brokers and Mansions...you maybe should have checked where Esmund Jarvis lived in Winnipeg with local golf course membership (St.Charles) $13,000 per year; Manitoba Club membership - $1000.00 per year - $300.00 per month min. tab; Winter Club membership $1800.00 per year and the BEST restaurant in Winnipeg (Dubrovnik's) new him by first name.

I've just totalled $20,000 in expenses that would feed 3 farm families. Oh ya, divided by 12,000,000 tonnes and that only equates to .0016 cents per tonne. Isn't pooling marvelous!

[boone]

Parsley: "Thou doth protest too much"! I think you better go back and read my post, I have no trouble with mansions, I hope to have a light bulb to burn some day and running water. I was describing the human reaction that got us to where we are, no more no less. But your welcome, for me scratching your splean till the pressure was off. I will share this observation once again. I believe elevators (line companies, farmer terminals, producer loading etc. should all share in the opportunity to move the grain that the board tracks the price of. All I want from the CWB in these transactions is absolute flow through. Minn Kan- frt- dollar time risk of delivery-handle= spot price. Then have each handler bid their street to me. Kapiche? But if you want to get into it, when feed grain several years back was flowing out of Alberta with the farmers own company and finding it's way into U.S. millers plants. Lowering prices for mill wheat here,and lowering delivery and price there, and pissing off U.S. farmers, or moving east and being skimmed by a U.S. multi and yes building mansions in far away places and was denied by all players (so) the lack of coordination is what I'm worried about Canadian open marketers are dysfunctional. Market rises (seal the bins) price drops load the truck, you know the drill. Now you want me to be in a free and open market with a bunch of market no-minds with my wheat. They don't even listen to the gurus that do watch it.(canola) You can't legislate intelligence. So you keep the majority safe from the erratic and disturbed by placing them in a jacket. But enough about farmers for justice. And for the record it is upsetting to have farmers not treated fair and tom4 is right to be upset. What I'm suggesting here is you have yet to show an improvement that all can work with and I sit here ever patient your humble whipping boy.