What percentage of feed barley do you sell to the CWB

[charliep]

By way of curiousity (you may already know), the CWB is working on a program with maltsters/brewers where they will offer a basis contract relative to western barley futures. A similar contract has been offered to farmers for at least a year. I assume these two numbers will be the same. If not, where does the money go?

[TOM4CWB]

BennyHin,

Simple "Single desk" economics.

1. Sell an equal amount of grain each month... of the produce in that pool... and pay the grain grower the average.

2. The CWB Pool marketing year normally starts physically selling actual new crop between Oct. 1 and 31st of each crop year. The CWB normally claims they cash sell... and risk manage any forward sales with futures positions that offset that risk. There is unlikely any cash sales of export human consumption barley before Sept. 1 of 2006/07 malt barley production.

3. The wreck I am told in Europe was done by Sept 10th 2006. Here is a report on what caused it from the EU.

"Malting Barley prices this season have risen from an opening £72.5 per tonne in mid July to a current price of £112.1 per tonne, 46% higher than the equivalent week in 2005. The rise in price is primarily due to short supplies across the major markets e.g. across Northern Europe, where the summer drought followed by rain at harvest time lowered both production and quality. Demand from Europe led to UK barley being exported and some maltsters who did not secure supplies earlier reported to have insufficient stocks. The strong global feed grain market has also supported the market"
http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/publications/Monthly%20brief/nov06FarmingFoodBrief.pdf

The CWB ought to have known, by August 15th to Sept. 1st 2006 that there was a big problem potentially for malting barley. Why would they risk selling with the explosive potential caused by the Australian drought?

3. The CWB did nothing, did not execute a risk management strategy, and sold our barley at far below world values. Simply, there is no reason for the CWB to have sold our human consumption barley to ANYONE for the prices it sold for.

So what happened?

It appears this was simular tactical move to the 1947 tactic used by Henry Monk, of the CWB... to force the feds to back off on "marketing choice"... barley being the target as the Western Grain Marketing Panel Report, and Australian Reports lead this to be the easiest and clear first choice. The CWB created a massive contingent liability on barley... that the feds could easily be on the hook to cover.

SO... for "single desk" barley growers... is this just a small sacrifice to save the CWB from loosing barley?

Is this practically the reason why you defend the undefendable...?

Are you saying we must "save" the "single desk" at any cost?

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie,

A quick calculation on 112.1 British Pounds = $5.52/bu CDN.

Did I get that right?

CDN to US $.8525
US to BP $1.93