CWB Survey

[Jagfarms]

I think that the CWB could use some changes and be more accountable, but overall I think they are not doing too bad of a job. We have the CWB lets keep it and make it better.
With the open Market when are most people going to sell their grain? At HARVEST time when they need money the most to pay their bills. When are the prices often at their lowest? At HARVEST time. With the CWB and the pooling account you do not have to worry when you sell it and you know how it works. Then with EPO's you can get paid more up front instead of waiting so long.

One thing that could be changed is the contract sytem. Like TOM4CWB said Durum 2005 A series... double up on the contract signup... or what ever... reduce to the correct amount... presto 100% delivered..."

On our farm we grow CWB Crops "Durum, Wheat, Malt Barley". Other crops we grow that are not CWB crops are large green lentils, small red lentils, yellow peas, maple peas, Desi chickpeas, Kabulis, Rye, Canola, canary seed, feed barley maybe some dill, anise, corriander, flax, and mustard. We have enough markets to watch I would just as soon have the CWB look after the wheat and Durum and malt barley for us and we can worry about the rest. If you are not happy with the CWB there is lots of other crops you can grow and not have to deal with them.

I haul grain for hundreds of farmers in a 100 mile area. I talk with a lot of farmers and grain buyers and have been doing a little survey the last few years about the CWB. I ask the farmers what they think about it. The bigger and more successful the farmer, the more they praise the CWB. There are a couple of big successful farmers in our area that do not care either way. One of them is a seed grower so he doesn't use the CWB much anyway, the other one is a mixed farmer.

Most of the farmers who dislike the CWB have gone broke already. You can spot them easily; they're the guys who sit in the coffe shop and talk to themselves. When I get to their farm to haul grain nothing runs I have to take the battery out of their tractor to start the loader. Some of them have one battery for the whole farm and they move it from one peace of equipment to the next. One time I was loading and the farmer asked if we could take a smaller load because his wife needed the battery for the car go to work. Then in the next sentence he would tell me that the CWB is no good and should be done away with and how much better off we would be without it. He says he could do much better marketing his own grain. Maybe he should market batteries too.

Then I get to the pro CWB farmer. Everything is well organized the equipment is clean and well maintained they actually have more than 1 battery. Who do you think I believe when they tell me how they feel about the CWB.

The way I see it the CWB is for community they are for all farmers. They are trying to help us not to hurt us they can not change the world prices and I think they get a better price for us in the long run. It might take longer to get the money but we end up with more. With out the CWB we will be at the mercy of the multinationals like DUPONT, MONSANTO, ADM - not even Canadian companies. Once we are at the mercy of the multinationals, we may have to buy all our seed from them as well as all our farm inputs and if we don't they won't buy our product. The multinationals are brainwashing us trying to suck us in so that they can control us. They sponsor all the universities and colleges to teach what is good for them not good for us. Some of you need to get your heads out of the sand and read a book or two before you jump on the anti-CWB bandwagon. We have to think we we we not me me me. Watch the Tommy Douglas story the Prarie Giant it was one of the best movies I have ever seen and we have to start thinking the way he thought. We have to maintain our communities if we lose the CWB, we may end up with 5 or 6 farmers farming the same land 25 farmers farmed in the past. It will get so that we won't even know our neighbors.

Just because the CWB is marketing our grain does not make them communist. They are farmers for farmers and only trying to help us.

My great grandparents came to Canada back in the early 1900's to get away from the oppression of the landlords in Europe at that time. There was no land to farm because all the rich people owned it all. They came here to Canada to the land of opportunity to start a new life for themselves. They worked hard and so did all the homesteaders to build communities and it is all going back to what they tried to get away from. We're going back to where there are only the rich landlords and no new farmers can get started and they call that progress.

It might be different in your area of the country, especially if you live close to the USA border, but around here I think 90% of the farmers support the CWB. At least that is how I see it where I live and farm.

Try looking around the area where you live; who is a CWB supporter and who is not? Maybe what I've said will make some sense and maybe it won't , but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[lakenheath]

So what you are saying is.....

TOM4CWB beats up his equipment and has a lack of batteries on his augers and is on the verge of bankrupcy.

Vader keeps good care of his equipment, has extra batteries kicking around the farm (charged for that matter) and has never been on the brick of bankrupcy.

Tom! What are you thinking, operating your farm without proper battery support. No wonder you are anti-CWB. It is all coming together and making sense now.

[Jagfarms]

Not aying Tom does not look after his things. I do not know Tom or have not seen his farm. I said there is a few farmers that I know of who are good operators and are not for the CWB or care what happens to it. But most of the farmers in my area here are PRO CWB most of the anti CWB are like I explained not all of them are like that but a majority of them are.

[Jagfarms]

Nice job Lakenheath, couldn't have said it better myself.

Jag, the first half of that post was the dumbest thing I ever read.

[Jagfarms]

No wonder you are having a tough go of it.

[Incognito]

Jag - you need a job posting for the SWT and Cargill's new website.

If you have time after that, you can write press releases for the Inland Terminal Assocation of Canada.

Apply to

www.cwbforum.com

[ivbinconned]

Anybody can sell wheat at fire sale prices...we didn't need a primeminister apointed board to do it for us for all those years when so many of us left the industry!

[Incognito]

QUOTE:

I haul grain for hundreds of farmers in a 100 mile area.

UNQUOTE:

Why don't you put this on your tractor trailers for a slogan Jag:

I support the CWB 100%. If you don't - you'll go broke.

And then let farmers vote with their phones and your bottom line to your trucking company.

[Incognito]

Name: 101038614 Saskatchewan Ltd.
Date of Incorporation: Nov. 18, 2002
good ole Internet searches:

Mailing Address: Box 100, Swift Current
Main Type of Business: holding company


Name: 101038614 Saskatchewan Ltd.
Date of Amendment: Feb. 14, 2003
Amendment: changed name to Jag Farms Ltd.

http://www.angelfire.com/art2/gizen/

[TOM4CWB]

Jagfarms,

As a matter of principal... where do you get the right to tell me how to market my families grain?

Should I have the right... to tell you how and when you can run your truck... then I can have a share of your trucking revenue?

How long have you been trucking...?

I have owned and run trucks since 1979... should this mean I need to have a say in the management of your trucking scheme?

And a share in your profits?

[parsley]

Jagfarms,

The way to do business is not set in stone, but there are some tried and true ways:

1. Don't disparage your customers. They are the farmers who provide you with the cash for trucking and they deserve some loyalty.

2. Don't presume that fancy equipment always reflects financial viability. In Saskatchewan, the famers who are in the most dire straights are the big farmers. That is what my friends working in Farm Debt Review will tell you.

3.You are obviously trying to disparage all the farmers wanting marketing choice by painting them as 'losers'. Unfortunately, that tactic reflects not upon them, but upon you.

3.You can disagree with someone's beliefs because they are Catholic whilst you are a Baptist. But disagree with the part of the scripture that you find egregious, don't pick on the guy's kids or his machinery or his house or his car, or his choices. In other words, keep the discussion to ideas.

4. And if you really want to have a discusion about the display of material wealth as an indication of a successful farmer, make sure that your finances are in order.

What you are telling us on this thread is that all farmers who want marketing choice are losers, are poor managers, are poor farmers. And you've asked each of your customers where they stand and 'relegated' each Choice farmer to the Loser's List.
I'm glad you told us.

Thanks for informing us about your Loser policy. I'll make a note that next time I recommend trucking and container companies to the countless number of farmers who are increasingly looking towards identity preserved shipping, that Loser's need not apply to Jagfarms.

Parsley

PS

Nice to have non-Board grains to pay the bills, isn't it?

[sawfly]

Jags post is a fitting response to the theory that the anti board forces spew all the time.
1 that the only board supporters are small ineffecint 80 yr.old socialists.

2 . that these board supporters are just too lazy to market their own grain, and too old to learn.

While i think every farmer without mouldy money,oil, or horse shoes is on his way to broke. Im sure there must be some be some excellent anti board farmers out there. LOL

stereotypeing has been a big part of the antiboard side for a long time. a little pay back dont hurt

[chaffmeister]

Jagfarms: In the interests of understanding more, I have some specific questions.

About the CWB, you said:
“overall I think they are not doing too bad of a job.”
What specifically makes you think that?


“I think they get a better price for us in the long run.”
What specifically makes you think that?
I understand what you are saying about selling at harvest. But what you may not understand is that prices are low at harvest BECAUSE people sell TOO MUCH grain for the system and end-users to absorb. So that comes with a price. And part of the problem is that these guys aren’t getting enough from their CWB grains. So they have to sell canola into a hole.


“Without the CWB we will be at the mercy of the multinationals like DUPONT, MONSANTO, ADM - not even Canadian companies.”
What specifically makes you think that?


“Once we are at the mercy of the multinationals, we may have to buy all our seed from them as well as all our farm inputs and if we don't they won't buy our product.”
What specifically makes you think that? (I’m looking for proof, not supposition.)


“The multinationals are brainwashing us trying to suck us in so that they can control us.”
What specifically makes you think that?
(Some would say that this is an apt description of the CWB.)


“They sponsor all the universities and colleges to teach what is good for them not good for us.”
What specifically makes you think that?
(The CWB spends a lot sponsoring universities as well…)


“We have to think we we we not me me me.”
Agreed. What makes you think that open market supporters are being selfish? You should note that many who support an open market are very much for value-added for their community. To me, that’s community thinking.


“if we lose the CWB, we may end up with 5 or 6 farmers farming the same land 25 farmers farmed in the past.”
What specifically makes you think that? If I told you the CWB was costing you real dollars as well as opportunities, would you still think the CWB keeps farmers on the land?



Jag – these are not rhetorical questions. I sincerely would like to see your answers.

It’s crunch time. This industry needs to make some serious decisions and they should be made on sound information, not suppositions and presumptions, not rhetoric – and certainly not on the basis of fear.

It’s very disappointing to hear NOTHING from the CWB regarding its true value – just rhetoric and fear mongering: “premium prices, market power, one seller instead of thousands, market development, we support value-added, those nasty multinationals, nobody should tell us how to market our grain (re WTO - irony at an extreme), etc, etc. Nothing but rhetoric – no substance, and much of it misleading and borderline misrepresentation.

If I had someone like the CWB working for me you can be sure I’d want to see tangible, measurable results. The CWB may get you better prices, but as it stands right now, you’ll never know (and from what I DO know, I'm unconvinced). I for one would not want to build a business on their assurances.

[Jagfarms]

History of the CWB cut and pasted from the CWB website

History
The history of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) is grounded in the experience of farmers prior to World War I. Many farmers at the time felt captive to the railways, the line elevator companies, and the Winnipeg Grain Exchange for the delivery, weighing, grading, and pricing of their grain. They wanted greater power and protection for themselves in the grain marketing system. They developed a strong confidence in cooperative strategies and government intervention for addressing their needs and therefore established the Grain Growers' Grain Company in 1905 and put pressure on the provincial governments to establish provincially owned elevator companies in subsequent years and on the federal government to pass the Canada Grain Act in 1912 establishing the Canadian Grain Commission as the official weigher and inspector of grain.

During the First World War the federal government was eventually forced by wartime conditions to become directly involved in grain marketing by establishing a body called the "Board of Grain Supervisors " (BGS) for the 1917-18 and 1918-19 crop years. Wheat futures trading in Winnipeg was suspended in 1917 and the BGS assumed complete control over the purchase, sale and pricing of wheat for export.

After the war the federal government replaced the BGS with the first Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) to market the 1919 wheat crop. The CWB's mandate was to sell wheat in domestic and export markets at prices in accordance with world levels. This meant that the Board could not determine the final value of wheat marketed on behalf of producers and the returns due to them until its sales for the entire crop year had been completed.

To deal with this uncertainty, the Board implemented a two-payment system. Producers were first given an initial, or part payment when they delivered their wheat to elevators, and a final payment at the end of the marketing year once the financial results of the sale of the 1919 wheat crop were known. The initial payment was, in effect, a floor price guaranteed by the federal government and any deficit was to be absorbed by the government.

The CWB of 1919-20, like the BGS before it, was seen as an extraordinary measure by both the federal government and its political supporters in the Canadian grain trade, one that it was felt could not be justified as a permanent marketing arrangement under peacetime conditions, so it was disbanded in 1920 after one year's operation. However, in this one year the concept had gained widespread support among farmers and farm organizations throughout Western Canada. These organizations opposed the abandonment of the CWB in 1920 and began immediately to press the government to re-establish it. When the government refused to do this, farmers took action of their own and created "Wheat Pools" in each of the three Prairie provinces in 1923. The Pools also set up their own jointly owned Central Selling Agency for wheat and their system of payments for wheat deliveries was similar to that established under the 1919-20 Wheat Board.

The Pools operated well for several years, but the federal government was once again forced to intervene in grain marketing after the collapse of international wheat prices in 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. Wheat market prices fell to such low levels that the Wheat Pools could no longer hope to recover from the market what they had paid out in initial payments for the harvest of 1929, and were facing bankruptcy. From 1930 onward, the federal government had to step in and provide the bankers of the Wheat Pools with a federal guarantee on their loans to the Wheat Pools, and had to guarantee the Pools' initial payments to farmers. In this situation, it decided to put its own representative in place as the general manager of the Central Selling Agency. In the early 1930s the federal government still hoped that its involvement in grain marketing would be temporary and that it would be able to extricate itself from this in time and return all grain marketing activities to the private sector. When it became clear by 1935, however, that its involvement was going to be longer-term than originally envisaged, it decided to formalize that involvement and enact the Canadian Wheat Board Act, which was signed into law on July 5, 1935. As with the 1919 Wheat Board, any losses incurred by the new CWB on its operations were to be absorbed by the federal government and any profits were to be returned to producers who delivered wheat to the CWB.

Over the years, the CWB's authority over the marketing of types of grain has varied considerably. At first, deliveries to the CWB were voluntary, and it handled only wheat. Then, during World War II, the CWB was empowered to market all Canadian grains, including oilseeds and Ontario corn. Wheat futures trading was suspended in 1943 in the conditions of wartime and deliveries to the CWB became compulsory.

In 1949, Parliament amended the Canadian Wheat Board Act to extend the CWB's marketing responsibility to encompass oats and barley, but retained a clause that required the Act's renewal by Parliament every five years. In 1966, this clause was removed and the Canadian Wheat Board Act became permanent legislation. In 1974, inter-provincial sales of wheat, oats and barley for use in animal feeds within Canada were removed from the sole authority of the CWB. In 1989, the marketing of oats was also removed from the authority of the Board, leaving it responsible only for the marketing of wheat and barley both for export and for human consumption domestically.

The operations of the CWB in the 1940s marked the transition of the new-born agency from voluntary marketer to monopoly board. Out of the necessity created by wartime economic conditions, the CWB assumed many powers during a tumultuous period for Canadian agriculture. The Second World War changed the grain marketing picture for Canada considerably. Canada's primary grain markets at that time were in Western Europe. Almost all of those markets were cut off by the German invasion and occupation, leaving the United Kingdom the sole Western European outlet for Canadian grain.

At the same time, the CWB was drawn into the government's wartime price controls policy as the administrator of the maximum price provisions on grains. Beginning August 1, 1942, it was responsible for handling the government account for existing flaxseed stocks and thereafter the CWB was the sole buyer of flaxseed. It was also empowered to purchase soybeans at a fixed price for the account of the wartime prices and trade board. ****seed was a virtually unknown crop in Western Canada early in 1943, but its oil was needed for the war effort. The CWB was persuaded to act as an agent of the prices board in accepting delivery of this oilseed and its production increased over the next five years.

War rapidly changed the demand for grain from Canada and affected the grain markets in the early 1940s. The United States, now the world's largest grain exporter, was actually Western Canada's biggest customer for wheat and feed grains in this period. Along with an increased demand for wheat in Britain and North America came escalating wheat prices on the American and Canadian grain futures markets. The Canadian government was committed to a policy of price control during the war years and the rising wheat prices created new problems for this policy and for its desire to provide food aid to its European allies. The CWB, still a voluntary agency, could not source wheat a rising market since Prairie farmers were more inclined to deliver their wheat for the higher spot market prices offered by the private traders than for the CWB's initial payments. Canadian commitments to deliver wheat to its allies were put in jeopardy. It became obvious that some action would have to be taken to secure wheat supply to meet wartime obligations. In September 1943 the federal government halted wheat futures trading on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange and made the Canadian Wheat Board the sole authorized receiver and monopoly marketer of Western Canadian wheat.

At the outset of the five years following the end of the Second World War the Canadian government signed a five-year wheat supply agreement with the British government to secure some stability in wheat prices, and it was felt prudent to maintain the Canadian Wheat Board as a monopoly marketing agency to execute this agreement. Canadian farm leaders and their organizations and a large majority of Prairie grain farmers were supportive of the CWB marketing system; this was confirmed at least partly by a plebiscite on CWB marketing of barley and oats in 1951 in Manitoba in which 31,000 of 35,000 farmers (89%) voted "yes" to continuing to have their barley and oats marketed under the monopoly of the CWB.

To fulfill the various duties that it had acquired during the war years, the staff of the Board had grown rapidly. From a staff of 35 at the outbreak of the war, the CWB personnel grew to over 700 in 1946. By the beginning of the 1950's, the CWB was a much larger and very different organization than the one which had come into being in 1935. Today there are about 500 staff in Winnipeg, Vancouver, Tokyo and Beijing offices, including 18 Farm Business Representatives across the prairies.

The decade of the Fifties marked the return of the United States as a major exporter in the world grain market. During the Second World War, the U.S. had concentrated mainly on supplying its own domestic grain market. After the war, there were severe shortages of grain stocks in liberated counties around the world and the United States was unable to meet demand. At first, Canada filled the gap, but drought conditions reduced Canadian grain output from 1946-50, and a surge in world demand quickly depleted stocks.

In response to customers' wishes in the early 1960's, the CWB started making more sales directly to buyers, rather than through agents. At the same time, the Board started to enter into long-term supply or purchase agreements. The first major deal was a 2½-year long-term agreement signed with China in 1961. It called for three to five million long tons of wheat. This was followed by an even larger three-year long-term agreement with the Soviet Union in 1963.

While the CWB was a government agency for most of its history, its governance has changed recently. From 1935 until the end of 1998, the CWB was overseen and managed at the top by three to five federally appointed full-time Commissioners who acted collectively as its chief executive officer. In addition, there was an Advisory Committee of Prairie grain farmers, which had the function of bringing Prairie grain farmers' views to their marketing agency. The Advisory Committee was appointive until 1975, when it became elective. In that year as well, the first farmer accountability meetings were held to provide direct communication between CWB officials and Prairie farmers.

Then in 1998, in response to farmer pressure for the CWB to be more accountable to farmers, one of the most significant changes in the history of the CWB occurred. On December 31, 1998, a 15-member Board of Directors assumed overall governance responsibility for the CWB and a single full-time President and CEO was appointed. Ten of the members of the Board of Directors are elected by Prairie grain farmers and five of them, including the President and CEO, are appointed by the federal government. Under the new "shared governance" corporate structure the CWB is much more at arms' length from the federal government than it was previously and is more directly accountable to the farmers it serves.

The CWB has entered the 21st century with an established and impressive track record of providing world- class marketing services for Prairie wheat and barley producers.

[Jagfarms]

Incognito

Now you and everyone knows who I am who are you? I was not trying to hide under different name. If I did not want people to know who I was do you think I would go by the name Jagfarms.