Friday Thank you notes

[poorboy]

Bucket - i have watched you comments for months on pulse prices and what needs to be done by SPG.

What do you think SPG can do on the pulse file? I was a SPG board member and have a pretty good understanding of what the issue as as both a exporter and as a farmer and what SPG can do on this file.

The issue is India doesn't need the product. They have their own domestic product (a few years ago India was a net exporter of lentils. Lots of years they just don't need imports. India also tried to import excess product to keep the prices lower domestically. They imported it and sold it at a loss. Drove up international prices to slump domestic prices to protect consumers. This benefited the pocket book of Canadian growers. Now it hurts us. But they are going to protect their own people. Nothing we can do about that.

The issue is that Canada, USA, Austraila and Africa rose up to meet the shortfall in India. And the shortfall was huge. People grew lentils and peas without contracts and now the market is flooded.

People are looking for someone to blame for this price drop. Time and consumption and luck of some shorter production in certain regions and this will sort itself out. But India has done what it thought it needed to do to protect 700,000,000 farmers. This is not punitive towards Canada. Justin is a idiot, but wether he danced his way thru India or not, he couldn't have changed the situation.

What came first was overproduction and tariffs were a result of that oversupply. Tariffs are not the cause of the lower price they are a result of oversupply. But again, some market analysts have tried to blame this political interference in the market to create a org to blame for the pulse price drop. Just not the issue though.

AND, it appears Canadian growers will grow as many acres of lentils as they did last year. Not exactly telling the market that prices need to go up yet. We will have at least a million MT of lentil carryout at Aug 1, 2019. This is more carryout then India has ever imported. Plus the new crop. So this situation will continue.

China is a different political story and market access work will be ongoing at Pulse Canada I am sure.

The issue is that there is no communication. For my check off dollars they should be communicating the the issues with the farmers paying the check off dollars. Fly to india or china or where ever and then come back and report what they find. At least show they are trying. From my seat it looks like they are doing sweet F___ All with my check off dollars on the important things, but seem to spend money foolishly running around getting money to get 2 people to try making muffins with pulse flour.

Canola and Pulse commisions need to look like they are trying and then relate back to the producers. Get some email addresses and start sending out more info. I am totally pissed that I don't get interm updates on the research and other projects as well. My money spent, so keep me in the loop.

No wonder farmers are wanting their check off money back. Total lack of communication.

[dave4441]

The issue is that there is no communication. For my check off dollars they should be communicating the the issues with the farmers paying the check off dollars. Fly to india or china or where ever and then come back and report what they find. At least show they are trying. From my seat it looks like they are doing sweet F___ All with my check off dollars on the important things, but seem to spend money foolishly running around getting money to get 2 people to try making muffins with pulse flour.

Canola and Pulse commisions need to look like they are trying and then relate back to the producers. Get some email addresses and start sending out more info. I am totally pissed that I don't get interm updates on the research and other projects as well. My money spent, so keep me in the loop.

No wonder farmers are wanting their check off money back. Total lack of communication.

SPG spends alot of money on communication. I don't know the number but it is huge. But they could spend the entire budget and people would say they don't communicate enough.

Giving food away to starving people is not the basis of an industry. It is done in the USA under PL480 and expensive way to provide aid. Great for the trade but not sure it helps growers.

[bucket]

SPG spends alot of money on communication. I don't know the number but it is huge. But they could spend the entire budget and people would say they don't communicate enough.

Giving food away to starving people is not the basis of an industry. It is done in the USA under PL480 and expensive way to provide aid. Great for the trade but not sure it helps growers.

do growers in the states get paid....more than likely they do...

Interesting thats what I have been told for 30 years that we are suppose to be feeding the world....throws that argument out the window does't it..

We should that food grains bank as well...