feeling cheated?

[furrowtickler]

Re:cakadu.
every producer in Western Canada is a grain marketer, canola, peas, lentils, feed barley, canary seed, mustard, oats, and many more. That is unless all you grow is grains for the CWB.
You make it sound like the grain producer has absolutly no marketing savy.

[cakadu]

No, that isn't what I meant at all furrowtickler and cowman. I know why Prairie Pasta did not locate here and I understand the difference between the way those east of the Manitoba border get to market their grains versus those west of the Manitoba border can. I think their should be choice and if people want to stay with the CWB then that is just great. For those who don't want to work within the confines of the CWB that is also great - it just will come with more work.

The point I was trying to make - and it looks like I didn't make it - was that it takes a great deal of effort to market product whether it be your own or someone is doing it for you - at a price. Furrowtickler I am one of many who have been talking about value-adding, value-chains and putting more in producers pockets for over 12 years now and it has not been easy. Even during the BSE crisis there wasn't much uptake on it. We have been direct marketing our lamb for over 12 years and have built it up during that time. It hasn't been easy because marketing is sometimes a full time job in addition to the production.

The point is that it isn't as easy as one would think - nothing ever is. It takes a lot of hard work to market and opting out of the CWB will mean that someone will have to market your grain and that means doing more than just taking it to the elevator. That is selling it, not marketing it.

Re-read my earlier post and you'll see that I stated your points cowman. As someone who has a choice on how to market their product, I am all for grain producers having that same choice.

[cowman]

Well Linda, I think there are already some fairly competent marketers around for non board grains? Some of those boys over on the Commodities board seem to know what they are doing?
Locally we have one small grain dealer who sure seems to know how to move product! Don't know if he makes people a lot of money but he sure gets a lot of grain and canola.
I tried to point out the CWB wouldn't be folding if there was a dual market? Just like the Ontario board they could continue to operate? Ending the single desk would just give farmers more options.

[cowman]

Wilagro,Horse the only reason you guys want to keep selling to CWB is because its way to easy to just let someone else do the work for you, and taking their word that this is all you can get for your product. I hope dual marketing takes affect and I am proven wrong that I can't do better than CWB. Bet that I'm right though, I will do better on my own.

[cakadu]

I don't think that the CWB would fold at all, in fact they would really work to keep that outfit going. Like many things started decades ago, it doesn't necessarily fit with the way things need to be done now and in the future. Problem is that they have so much tied up with it and around it they can't see their way clear to getting rid of it, or at least changing it.

Can anybody give me, and perhaps others, some history in terms of why it even came about in the first place?

The one thing I have learned over the years is that you are either for it or against it - there is no in between.

[cowman]

Real quick:The CWB was created in the depression because basically the big grain outfits were screwing the farmers so bad that few of them would have survived! The first few years they put a few bucks in the farmers pockets by basically forcing the buyers to pay a bit more.
Along came the war and the CWB was used as a means to keep grain prices low while they soared in the USA. This wasn't unusual as all ag products were under government control...so while US cattlemen were getting record prices for their beef Canadian cattlemen were recieving a pittance...all in the national interest of course?
At the end of the war the Canadian government had signed deals to supply Britain with cheap grain for about five years...thus the western Canadian grain farmer missed out on the post war boom due to government incompetence?
After the contract was filled the CWB continued to use western grainfarmers as pawns to funnel cheap grain into Ontario and Quebec and to make many Great Lakes ship owners very wealthy!
Over the years the CWB was used to market grain to countries like Poland and the USSR through a fraudulent loan program! In the end the "loan" was either forgiven or remains on the books but is uncollectable!
The CWB is nothing more than an inefficient state run trading monopoly designed to pass on graft to a pack of crooks and as a way to steal taxpayers money and keep grain farmers revenues low.

[ivbinconned]

Or in other words...to maintain the westerrn colonies as serf!

[wilagro]

cowman: Your history of the CWB is a great distortion of the FACTS. You should have said that the tall tale was only YOUR perception of events as seen through YOUR eyes.
A shit disturber writing to please some of the other shit disturbers on this forum.
IF one desires the truth, 'google' CWB Canada and check out the REAL history of the CWB and the benefits that it has returned to the western farmer.

[ward]

I agree with Wilagro
Just how long are we going to have access to the US markets? Really Guys??
Just ask the soft wood lumber market place.!!
Just like the GST refund for farmers if we lose the CWB we will not get something better back. Do you notice most of the farmers who don't like the CWB are the ones who don't use it,. Just ask the majority of farmers if they want to keep it, I am sure they would not mind some minor changes but not drastic ones.

[ivbinconned]

Thats right cowman...get the REAL history...unbiased history, of the board from a reliable sourse...the CWB itself!!

See if you can find anything there about the accumulated interested charges on sales gone bad that the feds said they would underwrite...but didn't!! Also check what effect that had on the price of wheat the farmer recieved. good luck

You might also want to check out this thread you CWB lovers,

https://www.agriville.com/cgi-bin/forums/viewThread.cgi?1132199173

[cowman]

Well it is very true I don't use and never have used the CWB. When I was just a boy my Dad got the shaft from the CWB and vowed to never grow one bushel of anything that he had to sell to those thieves...and he never did!
Currently the only connection I have with grain is some land I rent to a cousin who grows nothing that has to be marketed through the board and that works for me!
There is a ready market in my area for feed grains and the fact is barley is the crop of choice. There is a fair bit of CPS wheat but hardly any HRSW. Of course a lot of canola. Of course malt barley grows well here but few bother with the hassle of selling malt...the hog farms/feedlots pay pretty good/pay today/short delivery.
The fact is the CWB should not be able to force anyone to sell their grain through them? This is just a fundamental right? If they are so good at what they do then they should be able to survive on merit?
Harper said he was going to take away the single desk? Practically every rural electoral district in western Canada voted for him. I guess they knew what his platform was? The quicker he moves to end this outdated form of communism, the better.

[cowman]

Oh and wilagro: A great distortion of the facts? Well I know what happened to my old man and that wasn't any kind of distortion...it was a FACT...right in his bank account!
Malt barley, accepted at Red Deer for export. Shipped to Thunder Bay, still good. Unloaded cleaned put on a great Lakes freighter. Unloaded at Montreal all on the old mans nickel? Promptly labelled "feed" and sold into the Quebec market at about half the price of malt and less than the feedlot was paying down the road...and on top of that all the expenses in between!
Or how about this: 1995- sold barley to the hog farm 1/2 mile down the road at $4/bu. Neighbor sold through the wheat board, got $1.85/bu initial, waited a year got another 27 cents! Last crop he grew that went to the board! There are few people who grow anything around here that needs to be sold through the board...they got tired of getting screwed.

[cowman]

I can remember hearing Shirley McLellan saying more than once that it amazed her to think that a farmer has the brains to buy land, plant crops, buy the combine and run the darn thing but when the crop comes off the powers that be seem to think that he doesn't have the sense to know where to market his crop.
I hope that the Harper government can address the issue but those that have had success in their dealings with the CWB will likely oppose any change he wants to bring forth.

[cowman]

Now I'm not really sure how this works but I think the minister of the CWB has a fair bit of room to dictate policy for the board and I believe export licenses and the buyback are descretionary? So in fact he could issue export licenses without a cost and with no buyback...and not violate any part of the CWB act?
Defacto he has then ended the single desk monopoly? Is that how it could work?