Why sell any durum under series A contract?

[parsley]

choice, you must be interesting to live with. lol

[parsley]

vvalk
I posted the WCWGA Press Release on Parsley's Notebook.

Your comments were good. pars

[SASKFARMER3]

dmlfarmer choice the grain is owned by me the last time i checked i have to cover all costs associated with growing it and getting it to the pit. So why shouldnt i control what happens with it after. My us relatives that waited with the last of their durum made a huge profit then last spring were able to lock in a real decent price on 2009 production. What the hell did the CWB do it forced us to hold back 20% of our production then they sold it to our best paying customers acording to the latest poll for a here is the bid one, a loss a huge loss a huge f$#K*#g loss.
Dum ASS>

[dmlfarmer]

Laughing even harder!!!!!
It is not me who is advocating what the CWB did last year - it is every other poster on this list!!! Ha Ha Ha. It is the "poster childs" of the anti board, choice camp trying to encourage all durum farmers not to sign up the A series and withhold production from the market to send a message to buyers. What I read is posters saying, hey if we all work together and refuse to sell at this price the buyers will have to raise the price. The irony of this is priceless.
But as charlie points out - who gets the higher price if it does go up. You with your bins locked and no delivery opportunities or durum farmers elsewhere in the world? How will loyal customers of Canadian durum respond when told sorry we have no durum available?
Low prices cure low prices, but refusing to sell, and pretending your bins are empty does not solve overproduction and a world wide glut of durum, it simply masks the oversupply problem, masks planting signals to reduce acres, and prolongs the depressed prices.
jdgreen might be right with a personal strategy of not selling and all the power to him to be in the finacial position to be able to able accept the risk and cost of storage of this crop for a couple of years in hopes the price does go up. others do not have this option, and others stilll may choose to sell and use speculative financial tools to capture increases in prices over time.

[JDGreen]

Perhaps loyal customers of Canadian durum might make enough noise, that actually somebody takes notice of the Pizz poor job the CWB is doing. If we are truly 50% of world trade, then we do make a difference.. It is unlike the wheat market where we make no difference whatsoever. I truly hope my friends south of the border do make more and sell their durum at a higher price as a result of my marketing decisions.. No socialist feelers on this farm.

[parsley]

Originally, organic farmers developed markets and marketed together with common purpose.
No government. No handouts. Marketing straight to the consumer as possible.

Then, the CWB waltzed in, set up a marketing department, stole buyers, pitted organic farmer against organic farmer, courted countless CWB monopolist organic entrants who couldn't tie their tax-shoelaces if they actually bent over, paid themselves fat ass organic marketing department wages by stealing the money from conventional farmer' accounts, and then went on permanent vacation.

The organic wheat market today?

Yes, well, don't bother telling me about the benefit of having a Government monopoly as a partner. The only one who collects a premium is Wheat Board staff.

The pasta growers would be operating today if it wasn't for the CWB.

[charliep]

Perhaps a failure of the durum market has been to develop new
markets for extra production given durum as a crop is well suited to
western Canada.

In the current market, customers can shift where they from (more
US/less Canada) as well as the level of ordinary wheat they use in the
pasta blends versus 100 % semolina (durum flour). Even couscous
markets (North Africa) can shift their sources of starch to rice and
other products. All these decisions can be made in a world of solid
durum supply demand information including what is available for sale
in western Canada.

[parsley]

Well, charliep, we have Canadians who know how to make pasta. And Canadians who WANT to make pasta.

And CANADIAN pasta making in the West is a NEW market for durum.

Farmers may as well be marketing pasta instead of the CWB marketing durum.

[checking]

Dmlfarmer, how much of that big "A" on you have you got left after doing all that laughing? Must have a pretty small piece left to sit on!!! The truth is that it would not matter if the CWB price was a dollar a bushel for durum. It would still receive all that it wanted to sell from farmers. On that point only, I agree with you. Those who are saying that they will sign up a portion of their production to free up bin space for the next year are also saying they agree with you, but for a different reason. This is what I have a difficult time in grasping. We all know that this crop was the most expensive of any to produce. Yet most are prepared to blow a part, or all of it out on the chance they will replace it the following year. I don't get it, I will never get this logic, and the CWB will receive none of my durum at those PRO's.

[parsley]

well, well checking.your mamma must have some smarts.

[cityguy]

How short does everyone think the CWB is? Presumably Cdn durum is held off the market, world price goes higher (wipes out the $1.00/bu US durum LDP), but CWB can't access the market becuase of no supply, which forces tradition steady Cdn customers to go elsewhere? Where does that gets us over the long run?

[charliep]

cityguy

Actually to be clear, the CWB is not short durum. There are currently 1.2 million tonnes of durum in the commercial
system (elevators and terminals). Weekly disappearance is about 100,000 tonnes at best so about 12 weeks supply
in the system.

<a href="http://www.grainscanada.gc.ca/statistics-statistiques/gsw-shg/2009-10/10gsw_shg07.pdf">cgc</a>

To make a comment on whether the CWB is short or not, you have to understand the CWB contracting and delivery
system. Farmers are allowed two opportunities to contract durum to the CWB - Durum contract A (October 31
deadline) and contract B (March 31 deadline). Grain flow is another alternative but someone can explain to you.

The risk anyone takes in not subscribing to the A contract and holding for the B is you don't know acceptance on
either. As example, let us say most farmers didn't sing up durum on the A series. Quite likely there would be a 100
% call on the A - farmers who signed could deliver as much as they like. The B series comes along, more farmers
sign up past what the CWB thinks they can sell and the CWB decides to take 50 %. Anyone who didn't sign up on the
A is SOL.

Add this to the irony of comparing average prices. Farmers didn't have access to full delivery on the 2008/09 crop
because of less than full acceptance on the CWB contracts. The discussion is now whether you want the crappy
average price on the 2009/10 crop or play poker on B contract acceptance/whether the average price on the
2010/11 will be better (having stored the crop for a year).

The question is whether the current system of CWB contracts/average pricing serves farmers better than an open
market with variable prices/farmers making own decisions about delivery.

Parsley - every good answer needs a good question.