North Dakota Power

[Vader]

I just had a report that a power station in North Dakota burns a combination of corn and coal. Does anyone know anything about this?

Under our Kyoto agreement burning coal should have an quantifiable discount. Paul Martin tried to put that into a bill last week but was opposed by the Conservatives, the Bloc and the NDP. That is a setback for farmers.

Whether we burn wheat in power stations, use it to produce ethanol or plow that organic matter back into the soil someone has to develop a system of compensation for farmers. The flip side of that is a system of penalties for Large Final Emitters (LFE's) such as Saskatchewan Power. In other words those who use electricity should pay more per unit of energy for those generating stations to use a renewable source of fuel rather than a non-renewable such as coal, oil or natural gas.

By the way you may recall the brown-outs in California some ten years ago. California was becoming desperatly short of generating capacity. Their knee jerk reaction was to build a large number of natural gas turbines for electrical generation. Others were busy building natural gas pipelines from Canada down to California and other US destinations. Those pipelines have translated into a huge demand for natural gas. That demand does not exist in some areas of the world. If you saw the last issue of the John Deere magazine "The Furrow" you will have noted the differential in natural gas pricing around the world from a low of 40 cents per thousand cubic feet all the way up to $5.50 per thousand cubic feet in the US. I had a friend check it the other day and the price was $7.19 CDN in Saskatchewan.

The industry is responding by ordering the construction of ships capable of carrying Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). This along with the demand for container ships will delay the construction of bulk ships and will contribute to high ocean freight costs for Canadian grain for years to come.

[charliep]

randy, I see your comments as a positive suggestion for increasing capacity. That is what I always like to hear at any meeting, vs complaints with no alternatives.
I hope that the place is packed to the rafters but nobody that I have mentioned it to has heard about it in the paper or radio as of yet. If it is on the radio I haven't heard it and I have CFCW playing on about four radios including the tractor.

[grassfarmer]

Personally I think this meeting will have virtually no turnout. Nobody knows about it - I listen to CKGY radio and have yet to hear any mention of the meeting on it. This time the blame will not be on producer apathy but ABP incompetence.
Questions / proposals I would like to raise are:
1.Will ABP lobby Government to control future price increases on eid tags?
I hear from my supplier that the next batch they get will be $3.75 and bear in mind these were on sale last spring at $5.75. The Government has created a compulsory scheme with these tags and I think they have a responsibility to regulate future price increases. Otherwise producers could be paying $8-$10 a tag at some future date.

2. Will ABP lobby Government to ensure that US cattle imported into Canada in future will be subject to the same conditions that the US is currently proposing for our cattle heading south?

Of course I also would support the ?????? that rkaiser is proposing on increased slaughter capacity. Also whether ABP has any intention of addressing the packer ownership issue - which I severely doubt.

[pandiana]

I'am really disappointed that people are not hearing to radio ads. This is not good.

Regarding resolutions...I didn't get a clear answer but it doesn't sould like it. But, you may be asked to write down your questions. In this case, ABP will have a hard copy of concerns presented.

It sounds like there will be some very good questions. Randy, you should form your proposal as a question just in case.

[pandiana]

Have to eat my words, I heard the announcement about the two meetings on CFCW at noon today during the farm broadcast.
The meetings are being held at a very busy time of year and most of the folks around this area are so damn tired from calving that they don't really feel up to travelling to a meeting in the evening, but hopefully some will do so.

I am hoping to take a load of people with me, cows permitting of course.

[gwf]

Hi Randy: Knowing that involvement in a packing proposal is not within the mandate or the terms of reference of the ABP, what sort of support are you looking for from them? Quite a few of the Delegates and Directors I believe are involved to some degree in plants that are already on the drawing boards. Is the levy you are proposing voluntary or mandatory? Are you proposing that the producers operate the plant? Do you plan to take on Cargill and Tyson as your competition in the marketplace?

[rkaiser]

Gerry, you know darn well that I support a mandatory levy to create this new business model. We've tried herding cats too darn long. We need something with some teeth and something with some volume. If this plant, or series of plants get off the ground, yes, we would be competing with the mutinationals. Hell any plant over 200 head a week is competition in the marketplace. You know the proposal as good as any of us Gerry, you wrote the original for crying out lowd. BSE testing for markets that ask, focus on offshore markets, and of course producer ownership. If, and I mean if, we cannot convince the Government (WITH THE HELP OF ABPCCA) to back the concept 100%, I would not be against partial ownership by an offshore country with potential management and protocal coming from that country as well. Management would certainly not be in the hands of producers, but direction could be.

Ever thought about how a huge Jet Airplanes wings move as much as ten feet in flight. Or how about those swinging bridges in Africa that span hundreds of feet. Both scenerios work very well because of flexibility.

Lets work on the basic framework, and worry about the rest when we get some sort of acceptance from some form of Canadian Government which just so happens to take most of their lead from ABPCCA.

[grassfarmer]

gwf, What sort of support are we looking for from ABP?
The kind that was written in the AGM carried resolutions from last December:

"Be it resolved ABP and CCA encourage the federal and provincial governments to assist in developing business plans, feasability studies and financing options for new Canadian-owned packing plant initiatives."

"Be it resolved ABP lobby municipal/provincial and federal governments to expediate rather than impede the various capacity initiatives."

Randy shouldn't have to be asking for this support on behalf of desperate producers now - the instruction was clearly given to ABP how to proceed last Fall but truth is they have not acted on it. Their attitude to the BIG proposal doesn't appear to have changed to me. Good old Darcy can call it a socialist proposal and get on with filling his own boots at the 100K Sunterra club - unfortunately most producers can't afford to be in that club.

[grassfarmer]

I was mulling another more radical idea over in my head this evening concerning packer ownership of cattle. Everyone says limiting them to owning a certain percentage of the slaughter isn't enforceable so why not limit their slaughter instead?
Why can't Canada decide on a ten year plan to rebalance the slaughter capacity in this country - say for example that by 2010 we will have 40% of the cattle killed in Canadian owned plants?, 60% by 2015. Gradually reduce the allocation of cattle the two American plants get as Canadian capacity is built. If they don't like it they can leave. Building plants would be easier financially if the bankers/investors knew that 10 years from now the US plants will not be in a monopoly position. Monopolies are not healthy, I would also legislate that a Canadian owned company cannot kill more than say 20% of the total. Imagine the competitive bids you could get by having 70% of the kill processed by 7 seperate large companies and the remaining 30% in small regional plants.
I don't see NAFTA or WTO having any problems with this idea - why should they object to us expanding control of our own industry?, the Americans have control of both their domestic supply and the Canadian supply at the moment.

[Horse]

I cant see why we as producers cant get together on this thing a lot of us support our local co-ops and we dont know for sure wheather we are getting the lowest prices or not but we do know we share in the profits at yr end.
If we had a packing plant with a levy to pay for it I dont think any of us would miss the checkoff except mabey those with financial backing of the major US plants and I think thats where we went wrong in the first place was letting the margin players take over.
Can any of you say with certanty that you have recieved the very best price posible at the end of yr.

[gwf]

I do support a producer funded packing initiative, 100%, and I do not disagree with anything that has been said on the topic, but I think this concept is being blind sided when you take into account what is really happening. We are hearing on a regular basis from the Ministers of Agriculture and our Industry leaders that we need additional packing capacity. We are not hearing that this capacity should be from a producer initiative; and as a matter of fact we re not hearing where it is coming from, other than the expansion of exiting plants and maybe the new comer, Sunterra. If you add this total expansion capacity to what presently exists, it will be very close to adding one very large plant. The only difference will be that it will be adding capacity to an existing infrastructure, which is far less costly and timely than building from scratch. Therefore, when you hear from the leadership that we need additional capacity, we are in fact seeing this happen before our eyes.

This is why I ask the question…. What do you want ABP to do, because they are already participating in the expansion mode of the packing capacity, directly or indirectly, depending on your interpretation of “participating”.

The question that should be put to ABP is concerning a plebiscite among producers; to determine if there is genuine support for an equity levy to finance a producer owned facility. This is a business decision that producers will have to make on their own and if supported by a large majority of producers, then this will go a long way in seeing the concept become a reality. If the producers do not favor the concept, then we should put it to bed.

[pandiana]

New Developments!
Resolutions will be entertained after all. Because there is the bi-annual meeting coming up resoltions will voted on at this meeting and then carried forward to the June meeting. You will be asked to have them written down.

There will be plenty of time written questions immediately following the speakers.

Following the question period, resolutions will be read, and voted on. There will be a maximum of 3 minute debate for debate.

Because this is calving time, it is hoped that the meeting will wrap up by 10.

See you there.

[farmers_son]

I am impressed by that. Hopefully it will encourage producers to attend. Good luck with your meeting.

[grassfarmer]

Farmers_son - A welcome gesture but what use is it now? Given that the majority of producers won't know the meeting is on let alone that a few hours before it starts the rules are changed to allow resolutions? Still it gives those of us that are interested an opportunity to share our views.