Marketing Board for Green Lentils?

[charliep]

Back to lentils/the marketing board.

Is the proposal for a compulsory marketing board? If compulsory, would it be governed by the current CWB act? Would it be a part of the crops looked after by the current CWB?

What products and services would it offer farmers? Price pooling? Cash marketing tools?

I note that many of the pulse processors are community based/invested in versus being the evil multi nationals. What products and services would it offer processors? Price risk management? Inventory financing? Transaction security/backing? Who would take on this risk?

What products and services would it offer end users? Would this organization create more value in the buyers eyes or simply be a price negotiator on behalf of Canadian farmers?

[wd9]

CC, you do have me thinking. At first blush, as Charlie says, price discovery seems to be an issue here. How often we hear, rise in xxx commodity due to slow farmer selling. Are the Lentil growers simply that uninformed? Maybe, I don't grow lentils so am not sure.

I hope this thread can focus on Lentils and not the usual CWB rhetoric. This can be an interesting discusion.

[sparki]

A marketing board will not increase grower returns. A reduction in total supplies will. IN 2005 Canada produced 1.3 mmt of lentils together with 2004 carryin, there as a total supply of about 1.5 mmt
exports run about 600,000 per year and in 2005 actual disappearance was about 1 mmt. Highest on record. But still 500,00 mt carryin again on top of the 2006 crop.
Too many stocks. Period.
IN years when prices were high, there was a threat to the supply. That threat is a big factor in how buyers view the market. Without it, buyers are hand to mouth, flow is disrupted, buildups start to happen, cash flow issues with farmers and processing factilities
become a marketing factor and prices get depressed. To get out of this funk, the answer is simple. Stop growing so much. There is only a limited amount of tonnes that will fit an acceptable price range for the grower. Over that and the price range drops.

It is nothing more simple than that.

[food4u]

When I started growing lentils(many years ago)I was told by an experienced grower to either sell right off the combine or hold for Feb. This is green lentils and it has worked well for us. Have just started growing reds and that is a different story.

[cottonpicken]

I thought there was a major supply shortage globally with india even banning exports?

[wmoebis]

This might be a little off the wall but.

What if a the lentil producers got together and hired a group of people to market thier lentils all over the world for them. They could just pay them the cost of marketing including wages maybe, partialy, based on % of price recieved.

They could put all thier lentils in a pool so the marketing men would know what they had to sell. They could then offer delivery contracts on a % of lentils growen or on an acrage bases. They would take the highs and lows and divide it up evenly for everyone in each kind and grade.

They could go even further and instead of all the big trucks running up and down the highways they could build loading facilities up and down the railroads, maybe every fifteen to twenty miles, to load them onto cars to be shipped to large cleaning facilities and have them prepared for market. They could pay these guys for thier work only. Loading cars and cleaning etc.

They could then go to the Gov't and say look how much we are saving you on road repairs why don't you chanel some of that money to the railroads to cover thier costs and reduce the producers rail costs.

Cash advances for lentils could be ran by themselves instead of the CCGA still funded by the gov't. They may even be able to guarentee that the producer would get at least a bottom price.

Probably something like this has never been tried but it just might work.

Because lentils are in a small area of Canada they could call it something like The Canadian Lentil Board.

[sparki]

cottonpicken
The ban in India was for red split or footballed lentils. They usually supply neighbouring countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh. India did not want to sell themselves short with good internal demand.

[nw9flynn]

WE DO NOT NEED A LENTIL MARKETING BOARD!!!!!
Producers simply need to follow market signals better. That was what Boersch's point was during her speech. Going to a lentil marketing board would be a step backwards for the industry. She only suggested this as an extreme example. The best way to add value to lentils to to improve access to market information and allowing producers to make more informed decisions. Its that simple!

[parsley]

Ditto, nw9flynn

[cottonpicken]

Right,Right just like opec shouldnt market as a group because it could never extract a premium,but what would they know about marketing.

[TOM4CWB]

ChuckChuck and COttonpicken;

Something is up here on lentils.

I have been tracking Australian Lentils... they have been in the same problem as Canada. Here is a market report that was given Sept 26 06 in Callum Downs:

"Lentils 29 August, 2006 $450/tAU

Lentils 26 September, 2006 6:40 PM
Old Season Lentils $500 - $520/t(AU) has been offered
delivered packer in the Wimmera for old season Northfield
lentils. (Several buyers were bidding today). There are old
season lentils out there still, although they must be getting a
little thin on the ground.
In 2002 lentil prices peaked late in October, early
November, at $620/t(AU). At current exchange rates this would
only translate into $460/t. So, prices over $500/t at current
exchange rates look pretty good. We have had Northfield
lentil prices go as high as $580/t(AU) in January – March 2005.
That was at high exchange rates as well.
So, we can still see upside from current levels without prices
moving above levels seen in the relatively recent past.
However, at current exchange rates it would be
extraordinary if lentil prices could get to the levels of the
2002 drought.
My view would be that old season lentils need to be quit
within the next 4 weeks at prices in excess of the current
bids."



The Moslem world simply does not like Canada and Australia.

When we sell much of what we produce after their typical peak time when they consume the majority of the lentil they eat... which gets earlier each year... our window to sell to them got cut off. We are about there now. We need to be shipping the biggest majority of our lentil in July now... if they were fresh and bright.
Good luck finding that with old crop.

Our harvest season is simply out of time now with the Moslem holidays... where 5 years ago it was almost perfect. In 35 years... we will be back where we should be!

Australians grow very little lentil... any one wonder why?

1. Politics; Turkey/Southern EU is THE KING... of this market, as far as I can see!
2. Poor returns/ac compared to other crops.

It would be the same here in Canada... don't you think?

[wd9]

Maybe the Sask pulse commission should spend less time on research, and more time on markets and market development.

Wouldn't that be the natural fit as they already have everything they need to make it happen - money, resources (money can get any req'd resources if short) and a solid structure.

At the very least publish good market info to help with the price discovery.