CWB and CGC Grain Grading at Port....Gossip?

[ianben]

Just a thought
I presume you guys know what affects falling numbers?
Do you ignore this traite as you are not individually tested for it?
If this is true perhaps it could be an advantage. Some years if the weather is against us ALL our wheat will fail the falling number test. Last year was such a year.

Regards Ian

[bbrindle]

I sent an email to the CGC earlier today to see if they wanted to join this and respond. They asked me to post the following:

The CWB has not had any customer rejection of sales or shipments of No. 2
CWRS or any other wheat grades due to concerns over falling number results. The CWB is currently working with the CGC and other members in the grain handling system to ensure that our customers are satisfied with the falling numbers of the wheat they're purchasing from the CWB.

[charliep]

Just a note to highlight we are talking about an industry problem and not just a CWB one. The issue starts right at the farm level with varietal selection to fit markets the first (keeping in mind mother nature) right through to providing the customer the product they are paying for. It is an issue that in some sense involves all elements of the industry from farm managers to CGC to elevators to terminals - anyone who handles/blends/grades wheat.

My experience suggests that there is a pretty reasonable correlation between our current grading standards and the quality characturistics our customers want/are paying for. Do we want to include other quality characturistics in our grading standards? Are there things we are doing right? How would we change the system if it needs improvement? In the US, they pay premiums for wheat quality characturistics. Do they segregate wheat with certain quality or do they blend to achieve an end quality result? Who accepts the risk/profit from blending? Should falling number be a grade determining factor as Ianben indicates is the case in the UK? Could we achieve premium for falling number as a grade specification/requirement or would this simply be another reason for customers to discount some wheat?

[AdamSmith]

It amazes me how the CGC and the CWB react when anything that might suggest they're not the dictionary's example of perfection comes out in public!

Judging by bbrindles note the CGC is quite POed that this information has come to light. As farmers were supposed to be dumb hayseeds who have no business inquiring about what is happening, if there are problems it's none of our concern, they'll look after it and just send us (farmers) the bill.

Just shut up, grow grain, and pay up when others screw up.

The CGC says no sales have been lost, that may very well be so but that doesn't mean other grain had to brought in to meet those sales commitments and that the grain in question is not still sitting at the west coast with no buyer for it. Or that the grain in question was just deep discounted in order to move it out.

If my liability ended when I delivered the grain to the elevator this wouldn't even be an issue. But that's not what happens I'm expected to cover this screw-up no mater whose fault it was.

Justice Estey said let those who screw-up pay the price not the farmer. But that won't happen will it. The needs of the regulators supercede the needs of the farmers.

I can already see the web starting to be spun.

AdamSmith

[AdamSmith]

I knew when I posted the last message that it would be fodder for some negative comments. However, I posted it because all of this discussion was based on the declaration of a rumour.

And it is posted by anonymous people, who obviously have a decided bias against the CWB. One who evidently works closely with grain companies (is that a bias?) And who attempt at every turn to discredit the organization that has an impeccable reputation with international customers on behalf of western Cdn farmers. Am I sounding defensive? - I hope so.

To Ianben, the visual grading system works as a cost effective indicator of grain quality. Percentage of Hard Vitreous Kernel (HVK) and degree of kernel soundness are reliable indicators of alpha amylase enzyme activity (sprouting). Rather than have to test the well over 1 million truckloads that enter the elevator system each year, the testing can be done at terminal position, before assembling the product for the customer, in a much more efficient way, and obviously lower cost. This is enabled by a strict varietal registration system, so wheat that has the same kernel shape and color has defined milling characteristics.

Canada has a world leading reputation for providing consistency, uniformity and reliabiilty of meeting specs. This doesn't sound like a system that has performed poorly.

Hoever, I agree that our wheat quality system in Canada will have to change and evolve. Again, I direct people to look at the discussion paper on this topic on the www.cwb.ca/publications... entitled Western Canada's wehat qualty control system.

Also Charlie is right - this is an industry issue, not one to be directed solely at the CWB.

Tom

[TOM4CWB]

To Charlie, TOM and the CGC and CWB.

I find it amazing that grain producers are not considered part of the industry!

We as grain producers are hiring you, the trade, the grain co's, government extention people, CGC and CWB to be our partners and do a specific job for us, the Western Canadian grain producers.

No One Has More To Loose Than Grain Producers!

And we wonder why Canada is known as a inconsistant unreliable shipper of wheat and barley by the world's grain consumers and buyers?

Please stop treating me like I am a mushroom!

I am concerned about the consumers of my grain products, even if you don't think I should be!

I like to think we might learn by our mistakes, instead of hiding our heads in the sand and then getting our collective farmer buts kicked by everyone else!

Have I over reacted?

[AdamSmith]

thalpenny, I'll stop discrediting the CWB tommorow, I'll never utter another unkind word about it, just let me out.

We can part company and I'll wish you well. But if you (not you personaly but the CWB) continue to keep me confined to a system which I oppose, I'm going to continue to raise kane every chance I get. If it takes another ten years to do so, so be it.

It's your (the CWB's) call. More bitterness and accusations or a peaceful coexistance. I would much prefer the latter.

Pitty about all those dollars spent on country meetings, new benchmarking studies, glossey publications etc. All going down the crapper when this hits the fan.

AdamSmith

[Braveheart]

Adam Smith publishes a document signed by a high ranking CWB official. Thalpenny continues to refer to "rumours". This reminds me of Bill Clinton saying, "I did not have sex with that woman"!

Thalpenny refers to many of the participants in this thread as being biased against the CWB. In fact, these people are biased in favor of farmers. There is a difference. These people vigorously defend the rights of farmers, rights that the Gov't of Canada suspended in 1943.

The CWB calls itself a marketer. If it really believed that, the CWB wouldn't have balked when farmers said they should be paid for the protein in their wheat. They (CWB) wouldn't have resisted years of lobbying to pay farmers in increments on protein. If it was a marketer of farmers' wheat, the CWB wouldn't continue to shun paying farmers on a sliding scale for the dry matter in grain. And if it were truly a marketer, the CWB wouldn't continue to support KVD (to maintain the flagship CWRS).

The support of KVD as the mainstay of Canada's quality assurance system has robbed western farmers of countless potentially promising wheat varieties that never saw registration. It is not a good measure of the actual milling and baking quality of wheat. In fact, thalpenny, visual degree of kernal soundness is no indicator of the presence of alpha amylase enzyme.

What can be done to improve Canada's quality assurance system? I believe KVD should be replaced with affadavits in some classes, ie AC Navigator, AC Vista, HY644, etc. CWRS could be quality assured with simple declarations, followed by falling number and protein testing. In an open market system, enterprising entrepreneurs might have had those declarations document field and pesticide history which could have added some value to a commodity in a food safety conscious world.

Canada is the only country I know of that uses KVD as a quality assurance system. Yet, we lose market share every year. We use KVD to maintain the CWRS class. Yet, Alberta farmers find CPS varieties have the potential to return a better contribution to margin. Manitoba farmers are finding high yields from winter wheat, and have trouble registering new varieties because of KVD requirements.

The mess in Vancouver is a result of hanging on to the sinking KVD ship. It could cause lost opportunities to sell wheat and lost canola sales. Seeing as the wheat board is at helm of the ship, it should go down with it.

Braveheart

[parsley]

This is what the CWB's VP Transportation and Country Operations CWB. Ward Weisensel supposedly states in a letter,

" ... The net effect of this blending is that the FN levels of No.2/3CWRS unloading at port are not meeting the quality expectations of customers. "

Everyone on Agri-ville will hope the CWB's Vice President of Transportation and Operations is not referring to rumors.


This is what the CWB's thalpenny says on Agri-ville,

"Falling number tests are conducted at port, and if there are problems, obviously they are rectified before the CGC provides a certificate final on any vessel."

You're right, Tom. The customer is always looked after ...and very well. The buyer gets a good product. That's Good. The CGC inspection service that the FARMER is footing the for, is so that ultimately, we have satisfied buyers.


So the bottom line is, grain is taken to port that doesn't meet specs...the buyer doesn't want it....so everything is juggled around, and other grain is brought in....with the right specs......unloading costs....or storage costs....or recleaning costs....or re-inspection costs.....so the buyer is satisfied . The ship is loaded and the buyer is happy.

But the farmer pays for that re-loading, that re-cleaning, that re-hauling and that re-grading and that re-testing. Is all this extra expense for farmers justified?

Parsley

[charliep]

Parsley - So how does the industry do things differently - keeping in mind we are moving more and more to a bulk handling system based on concrete monster elevators and 100 car unit trains? Include other grading factors in the elevator system? Make the CWB a port buyer and the grain companies accountable for meeting contract specifications? Other ideas?

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie,

Remember way, way back, I mentioned something about the CWB at the elevator pit?

If we had a good testing system, and the CWB Knew exactly what each farmer had that contracted and delivered to them, exact quality specs, then the CWB would be able to demand this quality be delivered to our customers!

The system then could revert to contractual arrangements, the grain handlers doing what they do best, the railways doing what they do best, and the CWB only involved in selling this grain.

A commercial system, a responsible system, an accountable system!

Wouldn't that be something worth working for Charlie?

If this happened, it would even increase the value if my Canola at my farm gate because of the increased stability and customer satisfaction when buying Canola, Wheat, and Barley from Canada.

And that would be a good thing, RIGHT CHARLIE?

[prairiedog]

Methinks thalpenny doth protest to much. Rumour has become fact. In the Canadian grain system rumour and fact are often indistingushable. Charliep we have always had a bulk handling system it is just the scale of the infrastructure that has changed. You ask if there are any new ideas. There have been study after study, commissions, panels, reviews, you name it. The latest exercise was the Estey report which did infact recommend that the CWB become a port buyer and have no further role in transportation. The Kroeger process considered this idea. . The grain companies would have tendered for CWB busines at port,would have been responsible for transportation and getting the grain into the system to meet thier tender requirements. The idea seemed like a good one. The idea wasn't particularly new. This was just an idea that the Canadian grain system might move towards a more commercial system. The CWB and thier apologists adamantly refused to consider this approach. So much for new ideas.

[ianben]

Hi all
This sure is a busy thread!!
I know this is none of my business really but the excusses used for retaining this system of VISUAL grading must be outdated.
With modern technolgy the CWB or anyone else could have a database showing grade location and anything else a customer might want to know all with a couple of clicks on a mouse.
This must be the future don't you all agree?
It must be an advantage to know exactly what you have got when it comes marketing.
I sure like to know the quality of my grain. Pity the news is not always good.

The weather over here is very wet again as you will see if you get the Grand Natoinal horse race over there. The track is about 10 miles from our farm and they say it is the wettest race for years.
Most of our spring crpos are having to learn to swim.
Farming is a FUN game!! Perhaps I would have more luck will the horses if they would just jump a bit higher!
Mine fell at the third which is better than last year when it fell at the first.
Now you see why I am a farmer.

Regards Ian

[tpayne]

CWB and quality.An oxymoron.When our grain makes a sow vomit is when the CWB might get it.They just set the fusarium resistance fight back 3-5 years with this kernel-type paradigm.

[tpayne]

I make no apologies for supporting the KVD system - I think it has served farmers and their customers well and given Canada a competitive advantage in the past. I don't agree with tom4cwb that we have a reputation as being unreliable and inconsistent. Just the opposite.

And again, I point to who is leading the charge to have the discussion on changing the wheat quality system -the CWB, in cooperation with the CGC. And I also acknowledge that different farm groups and people have been talking about affidavit systems, etc. for some time.

Regarding a commercial transportation system, I think that everyone is hopeful that a full agreement will soon be inked. Over the year though, the CWB tendered weekly, and small players participated, and did very well in terms of boosting handling. The proof is in the pudding that the tender terms were workable. The big players made the choice not to participate. The CWb made contractual arragnements with grain terminals, direct with the Railways, and will have commercial contracts with grain companies. So welcome to the present on some of the 'gripes'.

To AdamSmith - if farmers collectively decide to end the monopoly, you'll be out. That is who has the power.

As far as I know, the FHB resistant CPSR variety HY644 may have some reconsideration for some type of registration. Don't forget who makes the decision on variety registration - ultimately the Cdn Food Inspection Agency on the recommendation of the Prairie Registration Recommending committee, which is breeders, grain companies, CGC, CWB, farm orgs and farmers.

Tom