Marketing Board for Green Lentils?

[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.

[sparki]

wd9 I strongly disagree. I think they should be spending more money on research and less on marketing.
I understand further studies are being done on Zero tanin lentil for example, lentils which do not oxidize. we all know what a huge benefit that would be and would surely take some pressure off the grower.

On the marketing side, I think it would be a huge waste of money. What are these guys going to do? travel the world around making contacts with the same people who are already buying and trying to sell to them at a higher price?
It appears that perhaps growers are overly susupicious that the trade is leaving money on the table.
But that could just also mean a lack of understanding on how things work.

We are mostly selling to wholesale distributors who in turn, warehouse product, and resell in smaller lots together with other items to other distributors. There is alot of money flowing back and forth with alot of risk that exporters have a hard enough time managing inside of canada let alone inside a country like Algeriafor example
Who wants to go there anyways and market lentils to the Algerian's wholesale customers. Good luck and be safe.
It is not as easy as it looks. Not every buyer is AAA - many of them are not. Credit is a huge marketing tool globally almost always part of the deal.

Did anyone note the article where they l
isted the world's top 10 countries where it was mostly likely in business to deal in bribes?
The order may not be correct, but the list included China, India, Turkey, Russia, Iran, and other south East Asian counties and middle eastern countries.
These are all the places in the world where most of our pulses go. In that environment you better know very well who you are dealing with and you better be sure you understand how and when you will get your money. All it takes in one bad deal to offet 10-20 good ones

To spend money to send some guy to relearn all this is truly a waste of money and time.

[wd9]

Sorry, Pulse Canada is what I should have wrote. Gord and the crew.