Done, Seeding now time to hit the lake.

[parsley]

Oh, btw, Mc, you left your load of canola sitting so you could reply?

Eager now aren't we. LOL

That was the best part.

Now, I'm going to ask you a trick question. LOL

Let's see if we have any common ground when it comes to marketing:

I'd enjoy if you'd read my blog.

Would you enjoy it if I bought farm products from you?

Note: I used the word enjoy.

Parsley

[SASKFARMER3]

Yes MC its nice to talk marketing on this site, but look at stats of use lately today as an example, US Dollar at par 0 replies, frost tonight in all west 3 replies, going to lake after long seeding process for one night 30 replies.
Seems to me once in a while letting off some steam or just silly nonsense helps one come back to earth and realize that life is to short to sweat the small stuff.
Yes funny always remember summer holiday to Clear Lake or BC, but never remember picking roots, stones, cleaning the barn hauling bales fixing fence, running the cat, scraping or going on a bender with friends and then having to go do smf at 7 instead of 6 on a sat morning, Dad was leaving us time to sleep.
And lots of us who are on here have met with lots of people who run huge companies, banks, oil companies etc.
So back to marketing but lets have fun also.

[mcfarms]

Never seen a computer get apoplectic before kinda funny.

Single desker hardly...some people who read that will get a good chuckle like I did.

[per]

Yes I used one for the first time this year. Have been using a conventional diamond and then foster buncher for many years. I have never bunched wheat straw or canola straw before, usually we have enough acres of barley to suit our needs. I went to the Jones unit because I wanted to be able to direct seed or at least have that option. The bonuses were that not only did we direct seed our bly stubble this year without any troubles but I gain HP on the combine by not needing the straw or chaff spreader any more. Straw is straw, cows like some varieties and not others. I calculate straw at 4% protein. You could test it and be exact but that is about what it usually comes out at. The chaff depends on the combine and it's operator. For the first several days of each field the cows will do well. I monitor their manure by watching the grain, length of fibers and consistency. When the fibers start to lengthen then they are short of protein. How much you save depends on the cost of protein. I have used pellets of all sorts, tubs, alfalfa and barley. Often the barley is the cheapest option and good alfalfa can be as well. Tubs are the least satisfactory especially when it is really cold. What you save is in the fiber, not hauling bulky feed out of a field and back to a field and not baling or manure spreading. Also it is the least dusty option at harvest time cutting the fire risk down as well as making a fire easy to fight because the straw is in manageable locations. Will it pay for itself in a year? Depends on how many acres you do, how many cows you feed, how tough the winter is, how long you use them, and the cost of the protein. I pencil all my options every year and it comes in at or near the bottom every year. They do require that you own a heavy harrow and make the cows use them up. We had a field near wintering calves that were swath grazing and the calves loved them and cleaned them up well. I'm hooked on bunching but you will have to do the math for your situation. Seems like a lot of $ for what you get but after the winter was over I never regretted it and AJ will recycle that money in Western Canada.

[mcfarms]

Oh and wasn't that eager just was going by the house, needed a drink and came into return an email to a landman and knowing that once the bait was set wouldn't take to long for the fishy to take it. lol ( see fishing analogy)

[parsley]

How often do you drink corn whiskey, per? Morethan 12 times a day? LOL Pars

[parsley]

if Japanese malt customers or the Japanese national flour millers association or the president of the largest brewery in China came here, they would be looking for wheat or barley,via a Winnipeg office, and protocol would DEMAND that they process their visit through, yes, you have it folks, the monopoly seller of wheat and barley.

I don't suppose they'd want piss off the Wheat Board, do you?

Nope


So, Mc who's speed dial are you on? LOL LOL LOL Pars.

[mcfarms]

really ??? Oops guess we're breaking protocol then, you're amusing.
Oh and by the way it's not us thats getting the friends and family discount from the board on the buyback, but I'm sure you're topping it up on your sales to match what the rest of us farmers on agriville would have to pay to get a buyback right???

[parsley]

I've spent more damn time and money than you could imagine, (even though there are presently available, depending upon who you are: no buybacks, reduced buybacks, variable buybacks, and negotiable buybacks,) working towards making sure everyone, including you, are NOT having to pay any buyback at all, but after reading pettiness like that, it makes a person ask themselves, "what was I thinking?" Pars

[mcfarms]

Its not pettiness and you know it, it's wrong and the fact that most farmers aren't even aware that the organic sector is getting preferential treatment over every other hard working farmer in western canada is too, I wrote the board and asked why this was happening the response was that organics don't compete in the same markets as the grains we grow do ,which is a load of crud.
All grains compete in some fashion or another and frankly that was when I really realised that the board had actually became orwellian in that "some animals had become more equal than others"
You are the one that accused myself of being a suck up to the board Parsley, which by the way on agriville is the signal that rational discussion is over when the well well well your just a single desker or a farmer for just us starts up you know,I think despite your protestations to the contrary the pot was calling the kettle black. Dontcha think.

Now that said I may be wrong all you have to do is tell me here that you have never paid a buyback to the board for your grains lower than what the rest of us would get and I will apologise sincerely and honestly. But if you have taken a low cost buyback then you better do the same to me.

[parsley]

"some animals had become more equal than others"


Where have you been? The Wheat Board treats farm groups according to how much they need to shut them up.

Every presentation to the Board and Standing Committees, both Senate and Parliamentary, and CWB committees, and letters and courtcases have exposed "teachers' pets" that the Board has made exceptions for:

1. Feed mills.
They lobbied.
Each year, millions of bushels of feed wheat and barley go through the Export Manufactured Feed Agreement which is a fancy Wheat Board license on fancy paper.(EMFA licensed grains bypass Board grain and Board marketing. MILLIONS of bushels! No buybacks. No Board marketing. Joe Farmer should have the same. It is a position I have always promoted.

2. Seed Growers

They lobbied years ago and bypass Board marketing/ Board poooling. Do they pay a fee? No. Buyback? No

Why the hell not? Joe Farmer does.

3. Quebec and Ontario do not do buybacks. Or pay license fees either.Why not?

4. Heritage Grains.

We grow ancient barley. I've said it a hundred times. We do not do a buyback. None, Mc. Period. We get our CWB license to export directly from the CWB , and pay no fee, and do no buyback, but all the while asking for the same for farmer Joe.I should just shut up and snooze.

5. organcis

we lobbied, not only vigorously, but with facts, and got a reduced buyback after years of paying atrocious buybacks, but we only got it because we embarrassed the Board so damn much in Parliament and in the press, and radio,, even the Liberals were asking the heat to get tuned down. So the Board lowered the buybacks.

and on and on.

Did you know that the entire area called Cryston-Wyndell was part of the Designated Area? And they got pissed off and not only did they not do a buyback as you are required to do, they lobbied, but finally Ralph Goodale removed the entire area from the Designated Area?

Did you also know that a man by the name of Mr. Sommerville trucked his wheat across the border from Saskatchewan into an Alberta feedlot to feed his cows, and the Wheat Board had the RCMP come to his farm, arrest him, put him in jail?

Those were the days when the Wheat Board took it upon themselves to arrest any farmer moving FEED GRAIN, yes feed wheat and barley, from one province to another.
He wfought his way to the Supreme Court of Canada and won his case against the bloody Wheat board, and after he did, the Wheat Board had to allow interprovincial trucking and selling and feeding of feed wheat nd barley the farmer owned.

That, Mc, is why Saskatchewan farmers today, or Manitoba farmers today, can sell feed grain to a feedlot in Alberta, from Saskatchewan

I drove out and intervied Mr. Sommerville a few years ago. He gave me all his documents to do my research with.

He is a hero. And he did what he did for guys like you.

The Wheat board will tell you anything to try and prevent you from getting a license. If you roll over, they win.Most farmers argue a bit and then snooze.

Organics fought long and hard to get a license without doing any buyback at all, just like Ontario gets.

All organics ended up with was a lower priced buyback. Lower than you pay, though. A consolation prize to shut us up.

A no buyback license and a buybacked license are two completely different things.

That being said, for years, organics sold grain and paid a terrible buyback that was so high it often stopped sales.

When it did go through, the buyback money all went into conventional pooling accounts, which you and conventional farmers got to divy up.

Organcis got sweet nothing for a 3 dollar buyback. Or a five dollar buyback. No marketing. Not transportation. No final payment.

And I have been very very clear, that buybacks should be disposed of. Not made lower or higher. Disposed of.

All designated area farmers should be able to apply for a license, just as Ontario and Quebec gets, without doing the buyback.

And Mc, all of the licensing right across Canada is paid for by Prairie farmers only.

The Ontario Wheat Board has to get CWB licenses but only Westerners pay the bill.

It's time you looked at the big picture. Know what the hell your business is about.

And learn about the Act that makes your life a payee.

Quit worrying about whether Joe or Mark or Mary pay a few cents more or less. Demand that you shouldn't have to pay a bloody thing,. Ontario sure doesn't. How can we be so stupid?

PS

Is this what you'd call a rant? LOL Pars

So what did organics end up with?

From where I sit, and in my opinion, organcis deals with a slimy rotten Wheat Board that tabulated and contacted the name of our buyers on every bloody buyback we did, and then proceeded to undersell us, using your conventional money, "Hey Joe, have I got a deal for you." Now, they market organics.

Scum.

No, pond scum.

[parsley]

<p></p>
<p class="EC_style8ptBK"><strong>[URL="http://parsleysnotebook.blogspot.com/2009/06/has-any-farmer-seen-belated-cwb.html"](Worry about the sweaty lip, not your money, right?)[/URL]</strong></p>

[mcfarms]

The point is I am part of a group that does just as much if not more as organics to verify the quality of their grain, who developed in conjunction with the end user a world recognized national export award winning program and which is fully closed loop and yet our grain has no oppurtunity for the same 3 dollar bybacks why? I agree it stinks and the board needs to be gone because of things exactly as you described picking and choosing winners and losers fly's completely in the face of the wheat boards mandate. Trust me years ago I believed in working to make the system better for all and did work a little with the fbr in our area to try and nudge changes from within. thats what I thought would be the best way, but what I found was a system that by trying to be all things to all people was failing everyone and continue too to this day despite the assurances to the contrary. But my point here is I'm sorry but as long as MOST of us are stuck in this system. SOME of the producers who basically aren't have no standing in my eyes. SO you never answered my question WHO's the boards pal parsely me or you????? We both know and now everyone else that reads this thread does too, I'd be changing my handle to piggly as your nose is way deeper obviously in the trough than mine ever was....oink oink

[per]

I have no idea how that post got in this thread. It didn't fit too well as it was an answer to a question on a thread in beef. It is there too! Mc, I don't mind a little casual conversation in the Marketing section. Ever sat at a Board table and not had some casual conversation? Can't be business all day long. Must make time to figure out how to make and consume corn malt. Note to self.

[parsley]

I was surprised when Mcfarms called me this afternoon, and what a delight that a brave young farmer would take over an hour on the phone to take on a feisty Agriviller. lol

As it turns out, we're pretty much on the same page. He's reasoned and respectful, and has a sense of humor, and is a smart farmer.

And I admire the initiative and diplomacy on his part to end a pissing match between two people on the same side. My loss. I was rather enjoying it. lol

I agree with Mcfarms that it is wrong that organics or anyone for that matter, gets preferential CWB treatment. But I will say that organics had the best of intentions. Organics' buybacks originally, were way higher than conventional grain, (did anyone go to bat for us? Nope) and so we asked for relief by requesting no-buyback licenses from the CWB for all Western farmers just as Ontario enjoys. Dumb turkeys at the Board refused.

Instead, the Board issued lower-costing buybacks to only organics. Low cost licenses are very different from no buyback licenses.(Organics' low coat licenses have already been "upped", did you know?) The CWB passed this policy to lower the decibel of squawk from organics; but it also ended up pitting conventional farmers against organic farmers.

So, I agree that in some ways I am the pot calling the kettle black. Conventional farmer Mc doesn't get a lower buyback. Organic Parsley can get favored buybacks.

But other farmers also have access to closed system deals I've never even heard of, that are set right into the monopoly, ones that I cannot access, (Warburtons in Manitoba ie), andprobably Mc might even have heard of some of them.

Mc reminded me, nicely I must say, that I am stubborn and won't let go, and that I do like to get the last Wheat Board word. And I have to admit this is so, but my defence is that I'm me.

On a personal level: This farm sells ancient barley and einchorn and bypasses the buyback altogether, because John negotiated with the Board, amicably on both sides, for those grains to be able to bypass Board marketing entirely, and Board pooling entirely, and Board buybacks entirely; the same as Ontario.

It wasn't long after his negotiating,that policy changed and both conventional farmers as well as organic farmers, who grow spelt, einchorn etc., have identical opportunity...and both have no buybacks. That's good for both that was never there before.

In answer to your question Mc, we rarely do buybacks because we rarely grow Board grain varieties for export that demands buybacks. Overall, we have never done well on the few buybacks we've done, although I know folks who've made money on them.

Mc, as it turns out neither one of us is the Wheat board's pal, as it turns out Conventionals and Organics can work together to bring change that is good for both.

And as it turns out, Mc made his mamma proud. Pars