U.S. Export loan program

[LWeber]

This Crow:

The one that Lang tried to kill for a 5-6 billion payout as an annuity on land

The one that Pepin tried to kill for a straight payment for 11 -13 billion

The one that Mayer tried to kill for 6-7 billion...

all met with left wing extremism that it can’t be taken away from us ... (or from the Pools perspective - we are not ready yet)

Well Goodale did for 1.3 billion

Who killed the CROW Agstar?

Who lied to whom?

The only thing guaranteed in perpetuity the Indian Treaty.

You were fed the perpetuity line for so long you believed it …… the same thing is happening again with CWB premiums...

Who is brave enough to admit they rallied against a CROW payment?

Anyone?

In the past ten years, I've made a detour through Maymont twice, just on the offhand chance E.K. Turner is walking down main street - so I can run the son-of-a-bitch over...

[agstar77]

Temper, temper I suggest using the cheap feed idea was never a good argument for eliminating the crow. It's end was more about the way it was ended with the Railways not being forced to return all the land and mineral rights they got for subsidizing grain movement. What it has done eventually is shift feed production to the U.S. corn belt. We have moved away from feed grains , never to return. I did not argue for a one time payout but rather an investment in Ag research and crop devlopment that would have made us # 1 in Agriculture. Instead a one time lump payout was literally pissed away and the railways allowed to rationalize to two mainlines. Maybe there should have been a closer look at the transportation infrastructure as well.

[LWeber]

At least you gave it some thought...

at 11-13 bill in 1989 dollars - no one could touch us...

Otto's idea had merit ...I talked to him 2 years ago about it and he thought with inflation - the annuity would have been the best option and to the question:

What was the one thing you wish you could change in your career?

Changed the CROW when I should have...

[charliep]

Agstar77

I will challenge you on your numbers on the livestock numbers. Livestock numbers are up over the period.

Hogs.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/090217/cg090217b-eng.htm

Cattle.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/23-012-x/2007002/5002665-eng.htm

Western Canada has had declining feed grain production - still a less profitable crop relative to other alternatives. Growing livestock feed demand up to but not including the last two years (realizing all the issues both the hog and cattle industry have had to deal with over the past 7 years) and lower feed grain production.

In the good old crow days , western Canada used to export 2 to 4 million tonnes of feed barley. What has occurred over the past 13 years is that we are value adding at home. But perhaps you are suggesting this is wrong and we should be still exporting feed barley or more likely yet, cutting back barley acreage by 3 to 4 mln acres (camels in Saudi Arabia likely can eat Ukraine/Russian barley cheaper than we can supply).

[charliep]

Actually re-read your comments and likely off base on the above with the highlight the domestic feed market has outpaid the export market for the whole time period - feeding your own livestock/selling to a neighbor/domestic customer will put more money in your pocket 90 % of the time. On the comments, I don't think crow loss had anything to do with shifting of feed grain production to the US. Farm support programs, adoption of technology (including GMO) and growth in meat demand have been the drivers.

[Fransisco]

There were many years when my hogs paid the bills for my grain operation, now it's the other way around. Which is exactly the way I thought it would always be, one balancing out the other.

Don't count pigs, or cattle for that matter, out yet the cure for low prices is low prices. When this thing bounces back it's going to give some people whiplash.

Yes, there's folks calling for a bailout but I'm not one of them. It'll only slow down the recover and draw out the pain.

[Fransisco]

BTW- Agstar and Beetle I notice that the latest 2008-2009 PRO came out yesterday and the Board is predicting that for spring wheat they will do about as well as the US farmer who sold his entire crop for the worst price on the worst day of the crop year.

http://www.siemenssays.com/?p=17164

You guys may hate freedom and the open market but it sure pays a heck of a lot better than your favourite government run Popsicle stand.

[haveapulse]

Way to go Larry, excellent points.

The reality of policy is we fail to have the vision and generational follow through to form a comprehensive plan which forms a completed picture.

The CROW is an obvious example. Lobby groups called for change saying value add would follow, then they we as an industry failed to call for fiscal policy to insure the transtions into value add followed. Not only for value add but for our road networks which faced with an increased volume of grain traffic deteriorated at our local expense..

The Liberals sold us down the river, but we were happy to drift.

Now we lobby for bio tech wheat, without asking for some method to insuring that the cost of global technology is equitably distributed.
Excuse me?

While it may be amazing to have plant genetics that potentially include drought free plants, we will also potentially loose the "weather related production" cycles that buoy prices.

Therefore it will be important to have a method to insure that costs of biotech genes are not increasingly paid by farmers in first world countries without equivalent return, and yes the CROW is a good example where we called for change and
we managed to achieve a one sided balance sheet.

Now we pay on average 55$ per metric tonne to get to grain from port to the farm, and we do not have the promised local market which was supposed to miraculously appear. And the cost of maintenance our road network has skyrocketed, not to mention that we all now own or hire a super B to go anywhere with our grain.

Be careful what you ask for.

As for export credit, you need this to trade and it is increasingly difficult in this economy to qualify buyers. Lucky CWB has a government backstop, the private trade does not. While EDC has increased their budget they have tightened their process.

The US again proves its ability to see a problem and react in a timely fashion.

A concept that aludes Canada. HOwever with Iggy looking to make ground out west, one can only hope. Perhaps his first task would be to address the hole in policy left by Goodale and Co.
Then realize their CWB poliy is costing our industry huge opportunity.

We can only hope.

A plan is better.