Manitoba CWB Plebiscite results

[chuckChuck]

Craig and North Farmer. The only way you are going to have any power in the marketplace is to work with other farmers through marketing boards like the CWB or supply management. Even if you grow a million dollars worth of crops you are still a very small and minor player in the food system. It is unlikely that Canadian farmers can invest in any significant grain handling and food processing operations based solely on farm profits and asetts. The risks can be very high. Most farms are cash short and debt ridden and barely surviving. Please explain how you are going to compete against multinational players such as thoselisted below that can easily take a loss on any particular operation in any country they operate in in order to drive the small competition out of business when necessary. The other question is, if the CWB is the impediment to farmer investment and farmer ownership of processing industries why do farmers not own the beef packing industry or the canola crushing industry? Neither has a marketing board?
For 2004 in Canadian Dollars,
Cargill Inc. 92 Billion in Revenue, 2.7 Billion in Profit. ADM 47 Billion in Rev., 643 million in profits. Con Agra 18 Billion in Rev., 1,055 Billion in Profits. Atria Group (Kraft) 116,498 Billion in Revenue, 12,241 Billion in Profit.

[peaqueen]

OK
I find the ideolagical debate to lack any semblance or reality. But it amazes me how no one bites into the facts that Chaffmeister brought to this debate.

Do the math on 20$ per tonne higher handling costs on CWB board grain. If we estimate low and say that average yields of HRSW and Malt barley at tonne per acre of yield average on your farm, the CWB is costing you, 20,000$ for every thousand acres.

Sorry but this issue of 20$ more for board handling charges is a made in Canada cost and indeed something the CWB needs to explain.

Hence this is further proof that the CWB works better for the system, than the farmer.

[parsley]

agstar77,

You've been told again and again that CWB reform must precede Railroad deregulation, because every railroad built in Canada, is declared as a "work for the general advantage of Canada in the CWB Act"

(Not the Environmental Act. Not Elections Canada Act. Not the Access to Information Act.)

The CWB has the legislative say over the railroads.

The CWB Act, agstar.

Parsley

[JACKFLASH]

Chuck chuck:

You say the only way farmers are going to get ahead is to stay under the monopoly. Most farms are cash short and debt ridden and barely surviving.
Okay 3 years ago we heard those very same statements at winter CWB meetings. The CWB asked what can we do to help?
They were told
- Raise intial prices from 1/3 ofPRO to 2/3. Hold back less.
- Raise the cash advance on wheat and barley from a paltry 50,000 to a little more respectable 100,000.

If the board would have even done this much, guaranteed the intense pressure wouldn't be there like it is today.
Arrogance!!!

[TOM4CWB]

CHuckChuck,

The very fact no one knows what the CWB risk management plan is for the pool accounts proves one thing...

THERE IS NONE.

It would be public information on the CWB Web site IF THERE WAS.

FURTHER PROOF?
If I price wheat for 07-08 futures only, if the hedge goes against me... and I for some reason must bail out... I must pay cent for cent the amount the hedge position lost.
However if that hedge position I put on and am responsible for is positive (a credit)... the CWB (Except in 2004 during a CWB DIrector election when Chairman RItter & COmrade Flaman were running) Keeps the money.

The explantion why?

Get this... the position is not held... it is blended into the pool positions with other futures positions... therefore there is no position held to cover my hedge.

If this is not the case... the CWB can calculate the true cost of holding the hedge on my behalf... and pay me the rest of the credit... like they did in 2004.

Arrogance will not solve CWB problems.

[northfarmer]

Chuck Chuck asked:

"Please explain how you are going to compete against multinational players such as thoselisted below that can easily take a loss on any particular operation in any country they operate in in order to drive the small competition out of business when necessary."

direct investment in new generation cooperative structures, limiteds coops, effectively companies, in the US have made many farmers in the US very wealthy over the last year or two on the bio fuel ride as big investors moved in - plus as smart businessman, I mean farmer, I would never compete directly.....and none of those companies have any direct invesment in primary crop production andf they will not in the forseeable future....my little farm may only produce 2 to 3 million in annual sales, but with integrated marketing with another 10 top (like minded growers)in my region, or province we produce 20 to 30 milion...we can then source unit trains and boat laods of IPP product for foreign brokers and direct source commodities....not every farmer goes to town with his hat on crooked to sit in the coffe shop....you need to get out in the real world....i do not need some socialist political agenda guiding the structure of my industry...I need freedom to operate..a term you can take from the mulitnationals...they strive for it

"The other question is, if the CWB is the impediment to farmer investment and farmer ownership of processing industries why do farmers not own the beef packing industry or the canola crushing industry? Neither has a marketing board?

I know of several recently developed packer plants and value chains in the beef retailing industry that are produer owned...and beef works better than processed commodities(canola oil) as they can differentiate markets for the end products to find niches to explouts that the Tysons and Cargill can not efectively extract premiums from.....canola crushing is a economies of scale undiffentiated product....and how do you know that I do not have shares in these companies.....plus how many farmers that grow canola complain about the grading system, shipping and delivery access, and the lack of market liquidity and pricing options...


there, you have my answers.. the coming generations of farmers that are going to make it have MBA's, business, finance, economics, engineering, markeitng backgrounds and the rest of the successful ones are just plain smart no matter if they had any formal education.......we farm becasue we like the industry and the challenge.....and some of even make good money at it......change is the only constant and if you are not moving forward you are moving backward...we have the expertise and the savvy that rivals the executives and managers running these big companies that you live in fear of....i do not fear them.....i fear people like you whose ideologies get in the way of letting me do what i like to do.....

so there...I am going to go watch the oilers beat thh flames with my two boys......

[BennyHin]

Been on the road a few days, lots of action here.

Pea queen: Please tell me how you come up with $20/tonne extra costs?

The last time I delivered CWRS to the elevator system, I negotiated $9.00/tonne trucking premiums, and was paid $9/tonne protein premium above 13.5%. When I delivered my canola, no trucking premium, and no oil premium for 45.44% oil. Also, the handling charges were transparent on my wheat tickets, not so on the canola tickets.

What was the AWB net (farm) returns versus CBOT futures? What was the arbitrage costs at the time between US, AUS and Asia Pacific Markets? And by the way, what role did fx have on these cost comparisons. Come on, no one takes you seriously in the industry, get serious and do some research.

[chaffmeister]

Benny:

I'll answer the $20 question.

According to the federally appointed Grain Monitor, it costs you about $20 per tonne more to move and handle CWRS wheat than canola. This includes freight, handling (elevation, cleaning, etc), CWB admin, tendering "benefits", trucking premiums, and so forth. This is an average for the whole prairies - not just one location. Individual results may vary.

It was brought up because of the U of S study that said it cost more to handle canola than CWB grains. They didn't look at current data.

[JACKFLASH]

If I'm not mistaken. It is higher handling costs for barley.