Natural Gas and Feed Wheat and Barley

[rockpile]

Gas rebates and other small items:
Tom4, I was not talking about the 150 dollars, but the 6 dollars per gj, which may well lead to farmers paying less for nat gas this year than last year. This could be countervailable under Nafta, so keep your heads up. Question you might answer, Tom, would these supports be in place if this was not an election year? Also, in many of your comments, like on durum prices, you imply that the CWB sets the mark. What about world market and supply situations? You can't jump in and out of globalization that easy. Also, if Andy M was such a freedom fighter, how is it, that in court documents, it was proven that only a meager handful of the 90 some truckloads he hauled to the US were of his own grain, and for the rest he was a buyer and a broker - and nothing more than a cherry picker. Did he become a freedom fighter before or after he got caught? By the way, it is ironic that it was American authorities who caught him without an export license and not Canadians. Quite frankly, Tom4, as much as the CWB irritates you, I haven't seen a better alternative put forward, unless we get matching dollars in support with our US counterparts. Laissez-faire capitalism didn't work 'then', and it sure doesn't work now. Enjoy your gas bill.
Rockpile

[TOM4CWB]

Rockpile,

I find it interesting r
that you bring this up about Andy M

I know of farmers in southern Manitoba that bought fleets of new trucks doing "legal" CWB transactions!

I know that Cargill made millions doing legal CWB transactions and shipping across the border at the same time.

Take a look at Andy M, Cargill, and my freind with the fleet of new trucks!

Cargill in doing quite well, the guy with the fleet of new trucks was happy and looked prosperous!

What about Andy?

I talked to him the other night, and recently Farm Credit foreclosed on his farm, and he basically has absolutely nothing left!

Please tell me who profited, and who went to jail?

Farmers were the losers including Andy.

Now why are the good guys the guys who took farmers money, and the bad guys the ones who were standing against farmers being taken to the cleaners?

[chas]

Did anyone ever think that their may be a (for lack of a better word) conspiracy between Cargil, ADM and others to break the farmers into getting rid of the CWB. They have been very successful in the USA and South America of keeping farmers disorganized. Maybe we have a Corporate and Government conspiracy to keep farmers disorganized Maybe throw in the CWB too. But maybe thats just thoughts coming back to me from my days as a policeman, when it looks,smells and walks like a duck its probably a duck.
One thought I've had is that wheat is quite a different commodity than all the rest that we grow. Ever one in world grows wheat and everyone consumes wheat, may years there is a surplus and it is heavily subidized. Its easy to buy and hard to sell. As someone said it is 13.5% protein and 86.5% politics.
Tom4cwb I like your thread on making an Alberta Wheat and Barley Board with more producer input than government input. Chas

[TOM4CWB]

Chas,

I don't agree that Cargill and ADM are working to get rid of the CWB.

The CWB allows Cargill and ADM to make assured profits, nowhere else in the world is the grain handling charges as high as here, in a commercial sense.

Cargill and ADM will learn the quirks of a system, and then turn them into advantages to profit from them. They do this all around the globe. I remember about 15 years ago when Cargill first came in a big way by buying the government terminals. The comment then was they had not invested in Canada because they did not beleive that the system would be around long enough without major changes, because it was so profitable!

Big guys are good to work with in a system, they can provide efficiencies that the rest of us can learn from. Therefore they deserve reasonable profits, they think of innovative ways to get things done for less cost.

If we refuse to involve them in Canada, then other places in the world will be more efficient than we are, because they involve multinationals when we did not.

We would then be at a competitive disadvantage, and be less profitable than we could be.

Many large players do not want very profitable conditions.

Why?

When things are too profitable, then lots of new money is invested which makes a system overbuilt, with too much capacity. Then all players have a tuff time but when some go broke, the plants still exist and go on to still compete at 20 cents on the dollar.

The Canadian grain handling system is now in this phase.

We are overbuilt and at some time an adjustment will work its way through the system, but it is clear that the concrete and steel was built because there is a viable long term good investment in the grain business in Western Canada. This is the good news!

If the new terminals had not been built, then the grain growing business would have really been in trouble!

Therefore I beleive we need all players, co-ops, multinationals, and independents like Pioneer. This way we have an efficient system and remain competitive on the world stage.

This can only be good for grain farmers in the long term.

[chas]

Well we have come full circle on our problem. But I'am back where I started on this website still trying to get $2 or $3 more a bushel for each commodity that we grow. That is a world wide problem. Lets comment in your last thread Tom. Chas

[TOM4CWB]

Chas,

Let us say wheat is 8.00 instead of 5.00, Canola is 9.50 instead of 6.50, and barley was 4.50 instead of 2.25.

I ask you where would we put all the extra grain that there was no market for?

Who would store it?

Wouldn't the result create an economic disaster?

Wouldn't it be better to create products that people and consumers are actually willing and happy to pay for?

THis I beleive should and must be our objective. I do not see the CWB having enough flexibility to be able to facilitate, rather than deciding what is best for our farms.

Market signals, yes ones that really require intuition and close comunication with the specific customer are a must to acheive this type of a value adding system.

Could the CWB do this?

They do it with the Feed Mills, why not do it with "designated area" wheat and barley farmers?

[ianben]

Hi Tom
The prices are right. This is the farmers disease.
We do not have the right to sell all we can produce.
We ourselves must store the supplus as an insurance against a bad crop.
Perhaps a years production and then just replace what we have sold at a profit.
This is how everybody else except in the world markets.

WHY SHOULD WE BE DIFFERENT????

Regards Ian

[chas]

Tom4cwb; I think you are starting to penatrate my thick skull. Show me a profit and I'll produce a pile of it and drive the price down. When I first came on the thread my idea was and still is to stablize prices which would stablize supply. To create this dream the margin also has to be stablized. Nice dream. Producers need more competitive ways to market their grain and the powers of the CWB need some changing to gain some of my dream. Just a small improvement in the price could be obtained by a freer cwb would be beauitful.
After all this time farming I'm finding out that I know very little about anything. But I bet this website has been alot more interesting lately. Chas

[parsley]

Rockpile, your words about Andy McMeachan,
"and for the rest he was a buyer and a broker - and nothing more than a cherry picker"

and thalpenny's words
"This in effect prevents 'cherry picking' of the most lucrative, and often closest markets away from the returns of all farmers."

come right out of the same closet don't they?


Scroll down to the thread Export Manufactured Feed Agreement, Rockpile, for a comment to you.

I'll get back to you later,
Parsley

[TOM4CWB]

Chas,

Hey this is fun, and when we are having some fun, maybe our sons and daughters might think it is OK to still be farming!

I think they think I have a really warped sense of fun though!

I beleive the CWB could accomodate and respect us as growers, and some positive things are happeing as we speak!

We cannot give up on doing what is right and honourable, in the end these actions are the ones that make our world a better place!

The challenge will be, if we can get the CWB back on the rails and headed in the right direction, so many people are so mad, can the CWB even be salvaged?

Getting the trust back will really be a difficult challenge!

[chas]

Tom4cwb It is fun in a weird way isn't. Looking forward to the meeting tomorrow night. Chas

[ianben]

Hi all.
I am enjoying participating too. I sure feel a lot better about things myself. A small light at the end of the tunnel??
The weather has improved too!!!!
Started seeding Sat. should be the perfect time.

My children do think I am a bit weird and wish dad would get off the computer so they could play some game.
David 13 did email the local radio station, himself, last week to correct some mis-imformation on foot and mouth.
I was very proud, don't think he would have done it a month ago.

Some of the media is trying to blame f m on intensive farming and likening it to BSE.
As if it the farmers fault no wonder some guys get depressed.

Regards Ian

[rockpile]

To Tom4
Sorry Tom, I didn't get the meaning of your reply. You say yur trucker friend and Cargill do okay. I guess that implies that their certainly are benefits to going through the producer direct sales program, and certain folly in trying to sneak across the 'line'. Sorry Andy lost his farm. But, then that shouldn't surprise anyone, considering how he conducted business.
Rockpile

[TOM4CWB]

Rockpile,

Boy you are feeling bad, arn't you?

My trucker "freind" and Cargill both did not use the Producer Direct buyback, but instead bought the wheat at deep discounts directly from the CWB, then simply hauled it across the border. That the CWB did not let individual farmers keep this profit for their own farms if they were so inclined, is the criminal part, isn't it?

[rockpile]

Cherry-pickers and 'anecdotes'.
Tom, actually I wasn't feeling 'bad' at all, but your observations reveal a lot about you. Your assesment of Cargill and your trucker friend may or may not be accurate, I've heard too many anecdotal stories over the years to really care. The fact is, from a farmer's point of view, you are stuck at looking at the world from your driveway, when in fact, you have to look at the world first, and then back to your farmstead. My point is that you had better be damn sure you know what you are doing before you shut down the CWB, and eliminate the benefits of single-desk selling, into a global market, because once you do, there is no going back. I ask you - is there adequate competition in the international market today to allow you to have a voice in the marketplace, and will you have more or less ten years from now, considering the condition of Canadian owned, or operated, grain companies? How do you envision the impact on your farm gate prices when you take into account that, Cargill, for example, is an active exporter in the five major producing areas of the world? How does this affect price discovery? Remember, this is a recent developement. As a Japanese buyer, can I play off Canadian quality for an Argentinian price, since the salesman I am talking to is only interested in margin, not overall returns? In fact, the lower he can negotiate price, the more volume he can move. In tandem with that, with todays low prices, have you locked up your bins to await a better return down the road? Why not? Finally, what footing will you have in dealing with the world's largest single-desk seller, namely the U.S. Department of Commerce? And their deep pockets?
Guys, I have to admit it has been fun, but it is time to part company. The negative and sometimes vicious attack on the efforts of the CWB are becoming circular. Very little positive is presented in terms of how we would all, and I stress 'all', be better off if you should succeed. My parting comment is to say that your hubris will be your undoing.
Rockpile