Grain Marketing & Fruit Peddlers

[Burbert]

I believe grain marketing is headed down the same road as orchard fruit sales, using brokers, to get broke. Remember when you were on holiday last year and bought fruit from a peddler sitting at the side of the road in the searing heat. Cash in hand right now, sell it or smell it principal applies. Work hard, get rich quick or go broke. Try to subdivide as much land for housing as possible, to stay viable. Same mistakes are being applied to grain farming. Am I right or am I right?

[chaffmeister]

I have no idea what you're trying to say, but you're wrong.

[charliep]

Just curious if you sell canola, domestic feed barley, peas, etc along the side of the road today? I also assume you have bins and can store grain.

[AdamSmith]

I believe Burbert is living in an institution with padded walls and special meds to help the residences cope with their insanity. Am I right? or am I right?

[Herbdoctor]

Comparing Pulse crops to Canadian wheat in shear volume alone is like comparing a box of apples to the sand on the beach botttom line is it is a Volume based businees and to all you farmers who can predict the future how many of you sold you peas for 3 dollars instead of waiting for 7 (your marketing kinda went down the tube there didn't it?) What kind of crystal ball do you have for knowing when to seel your wheat? at the very best you'll hit the average if you market right and guess what?? The CWB does that already!)

[chaffmeister]

<i>at the very best you'll hit the average if you market right and guess what?? The CWB does that already!</i>

No, it doesn't. Want proof?

[charliep]

Perhaps it is the confusion of making decisions that has Burbert worried. No "A" series contract to sign before October 31. No more contract calls. Getting all your money at the time of delivery so you can pay bills and take some of the pressure off selling non board crops (one of the reasons farmers sold pulses off the combine).

[Herbdoctor]

sure give me back to 1998 when the farmers took control...

[charliep]

I expect you are referring to the producer pricing options. You can help us understand the current weak basis levels on the FPC/BPC contracts. The optics are they are being used to pad the contingency for the new CWB.

[chaffmeister]

Herbdoctor:

Step 1: Collect price data for the grain in question at a relevant location. The easiest comparison will be US prices. FOB Portland is good for Feed Barley; FOB EU for 2Row malt barley; track Mpls will work for spring wheat. Either daily or weekly price data will work. The CWB can supply this or you can do your own research and find it on the internet.

Step 2: Go to the CWB website and get the final prices received by farmers for the class of grain in question for each year you want to look at.

Step 3: The US market prices will be in US dollars so you will need to convert either the CWB prices to US or the US prices to Canadian. You can find historical data of the exchange rate in many places on the internet.

Step 4: The CWB prices are already the average for the year. Take your US or EU prices (hopefully you've got them in a spreadsheet) and identify the high and low prices for each crop year as well as the average. I like seeing the high and low as well as the average - this puts the CWB price in perspective to not only the market average, but to the range in prices as well.

Step 5: If you have any trouble with getting any of the data, or interpreting what you do get, call the CWB sales department - I'm sure they will be able to help.

(Doing this yourself is far better than me spoon-feeding it to you because you are more likely to believe it if you see it for yourself.)

(Also, BTW - the CWB has never done this comparison for public consumption. Once you do it for yourself, you'll see why.)

Good luck and have fun!

[jensend]

i think whether or not the cwb did a good job is a whole other issue but in a time when in every sector of the economy, market power is more the primary objective than service or quality, the concept of having a larger entity doing the marketing is not a bad idea. what burbert is saying is now you're competing against each other more than ever and there will be times when this will be a race to the bottom. i got out of grain farming not because of the cwb, although i was no fan, but because i was essentially risking all my assets for the benefit of somebody lse, i.e. grain co's., fert. cos., etc. i was a price taker on both ends and had no control over costs. i am surprised that anybody was surprised there was no fertilizer shortage this spring or that fertilizer prices are lower in the us. you're the junkies and you're at the mercy of the pushers as long as you have to buy your crop before you seed it.

[AdamSmith]

"at the very best you'll hit the average if you market right and guess what?? The CWB does that already!"

WRONG

Not when you sell for $30 bucks under the current value.

Not when your basis is over $20 bucks higher than the private trade.

Not when you have to spend millions to propogate the lie and defend your ability to expropriate grain and control the market within the confines of three prairie provinces only.

Not when newer higher (much higher) yielding varieties with better disease resistance and agronomic properties are not developed because of KVD and the addiction of the cwb to it.

The cwb has cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that's hundreds of thousands below average!

[Herbdoctor]

How comfortable will you be in the future if the prices isnt where you want it and you are forced to sell some grain cheaper than ever before? just knowing in the back of my mind that that cushion from last year will not be there to dampen the blow of next years inputs is enough to scare me away

[just_wondering]

Chaffmeister
What about all of the studies out of the U of S with Gray, Fulton et al what do their numbers show? How about the NFU and their study that shows a 80 million premium.
You just have to believe

[chaffmeister]

Yeah, right. And tell me the one about the three bears again.

Don't get me started......