feed wheat v oil price

[ianben]

Yeah BP reports record quaterly profits making over £1,000000/hour

I suppose Alberta will be cashing in too

Lobbying is easy with that amount of clout!

Oil has a lot to teach us though look how they continual find new uses for oil
If oil was solely used for transport they would be way over produced just like us.
Plastic is another area grain can replace oil our HGCA is promoting a wheat based product which can replace polystyrene in packaging and of course biodegadable and green.Corn being used in US too I believe with some success.

This product is very price competative but again customers have supply and deadline worries

Very hard to get something like this to the market without corparate size funds and back-up.

[TOM4CWB]

Ianben;

You are sooo right... bang on.

In 6 months time oil could be back to $25/brl., then economics would dictate a totally different answer to our problem.

We need to invest more as primary producers in our marketing/value added industries... which enlarge the market for our grain products.

US corn and soy growers are good examples of those who choose to create a better market through innovative investment and political lobby efforts!

[ianben]

When you get elected to CWB Tom would you try to change it to a more broader based organisation who could champion promote and perhaps even back these ideas or do you just want to see the end of the single market?

Can I get a vote for writing on here?

[TOM4CWB]

Ianben;

You get my vote... for a good sport with a big heart!

[TOM4CWB]

Ianben;

On your question of my motivation...

The "Single Desk" is a ficticious entity in the first place.

WHY?

Seed grain gets licenses free for domestic and export trade;

Processed feed with wheat and barley is given free export licenses;

The CWB can give an export license to anyone at any time for any reason. No CWB Act clause creates the single desk... it is a simple license denial right. In fact the CWB only has the obligation to market grain, "offered" to the CWB following, section 32 of the CWB Act.

Therefore my objection has always been the misuse of the CWB Act by the CWB.

At my web site "www.tom4cwb.com" I explain that I believe a good reason to deny an export license... would be that a farmer wanted to undercut the CWB, and sell below that farms' cost of production.

Since the price inside and outside Canada under NAFTA is the same... the individual farmer cannot create a pecuniary benefit enuring to a farmer who has produce not in the legal ownership of the CWB in the first place.

Grain Merchants who buy the farmers grain... at the CWB quoted price (whether that be the initial or PPO fixed price) are required to pay the pecuniary benefit enuring the applicant... because these entities did not pay market price in the first place. THIS IS IN LAW the "Single DESK"... grain in commercial trade... graded with CGC grades.

A farmers own produce... ungraded... not offered to the CWB... is not in the realm of trade and commerce... and does not pass to CWB authority till it is offered to the CWB respecting Section 32 of the CWB Act.

Clear as mud?

Let me say this.

We must respect private property... and the right of the farmer to own and profit from the produce grown on that farms own property!

Then we can work for the greater good of all... which would mean dumping grain at below fair market value... below the cost of production should not be allowed. If this grain is dumped... penalties will likely be placed upon all farmers in western Canada... and this hurts all farmers. License needs to be denied. I support this use of the "Single Desk"!

[ianben]

Checked out the website. Looks good nice to be able to put a face to the name.

Have an issue with the term "below cost of production" as a reason for sale. I find this a very hard thing to put a value on as everyones individual costs are different and swing wildly from year to year.

I believe you mean, sorry if I presume, a sustainable value which allows us to keep producing year on year.
Not a right to make a profit every year.

I do prefer to say know the value of what we produce. While low prices are bad so is under valuing things like Identity preserved and just in time delivery.
Here we regularly jump through these hoops for free.
A CWB who priced like a multi-national different prices based customer need and ability to pay would really be an asset to the world markets.
Priced like this what would a Warberton contract be worth?
Is this highest price wheat being "stolen" too?

[TOM4CWB]

Ianben;

"Cost of production" is a term now used in US trade disputes... and has selling below the "cost of production" resulted in a 14% duty on red spring wheat and hogs going into the US.

We need negotiations to determine a "fair" market value... which needs to pay variable costs and at least a portion of fixed costs. THis will be different for every farm... as you have indicated.

THe CWB is well aware of the numbers used in the trade challenges... and know the standard. CWB lawyers and accountants prepared the submissions that were given to The USITC.

The principal still remains the same.

The CWB needs to encourage value added low volume high value sales... not try to stop them by taxing them. THis CWB action of taxing exports is obviously counter productive to initiating diverse and innovative new markets.

[tower]

The cost of production includes, as mentioned above, the cost of maintaining the land so that it can do the same again next year.

The cost of machinery, repairs, land rental, labour, money, herbicides and fertilizers, or their organic equivalent, and seed etc. have to be included in each farmers decision to sell at a given price wether it's to the board or his own hogs.

The trouble is that few farmers know, myself included, what the cost of maintaining the land in a sustainable manner, costs over and above those more recognized expenses. The same is true for countries, especially when some, like Canada, have been blessed since our inception with the notion that we can put no value on our land because we have so much of it.

Giving our grain away isn't necessarily a sign of incompetence or conspiracy, but rather one of ignorance.

[TOM4CWB]

Tower;

You are sooo right!

I have a letter from Earl Geddes of the CWB to Crop Insurance telling them that any CW Feed Wheat (65kg/hl, 52lbs/bu) or 2CW barley (67kg/hl, 46lbs/bu) that falls below these minimum grades, that the value of the grain falls to nearly zero on a farmgate basis.

Then he asks that they consider these factors in deciding whether to require farmers to harvest these crops.

There is no initial payment for barley below a 2CW Barley, as there is very limited demand for this quality.


Shades of 1992-93... burn your grain in the field... don't combine it.

Does anyone else get a knot in their stomach... when they see this happen?

[tower]

More than just a knot sometimes. With stocks to use ratio lowest since the early seventies, increasing population still, weirder and wilder weather all over the globe, the only explanations for the low prices at the farmgate are the USA and EU subsidies.

That plus farmers have been under constant strain from the agrifood industry, and suppliers for three decades to shovel more profit into the sector to their own and their lands loss.