Comment: The return of the Wheat pool?
The time might be ripe for a revival of Prairie co-ops
By Jeremy Welter ([url]https://www.manitobacooperator.ca/contributor/jeremy-welter/[/url]) ,
Marc-Andre Pigeon ([url]https://www.manitobacooperator.ca/contributor/marc-andre-pigeon/[/url]) ,
Natalie Kallio ([url]https://www.manitobacooperator.ca/contributor/natalie-kallio/[/url])
"To get a glimpse into what was lost when the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool became Viterra, we can look to Australia. Like Canada, farmers in Australia no longer have a national wheat marketing board. It was eliminated in 2008, a few years before Canada’s.
Unlike in Canada, however, Australian farmers held on to their co-operative grain handling company, Co-operative Bulk Handling (CBH).
Well into its 90th year, CBH has prospered, despite a difficult operating environment not dissimilar to Canada’s, as well as periodic challenges to its mutuality. With a 62 per cent share of the grain handling business and A$4 billion in annual revenue, CBH had a record annual profit of A$497 million in 2022 and has reported record-breaking supply chain performance for its 2023 harvest.
Those results belong to CBH’s Australian farmer-members. CBH’s success can be attributed to its efforts to support its members by investment in the infrastructure — rail transport, port terminals, marketing, export and processing — needed to lower grain handling costs for producers.
As a result, CBH says average post-farmgate costs for its members are 15 per cent lower than for Australian farmers who rely on multinational corporations (including companies like Bunge and Viterra) for storage, movement, marketing and export.
Through CBH, Australian farmers don’t just have a powerful corporate entity looking out for their financial interests, but a company that can help them navigate government lobbying and relationships with agricultural input providers and their growing arsenal of data being used to power artificial intelligence applications."
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The time might be ripe for a revival of Prairie co-ops
By Jeremy Welter ([url]https://www.manitobacooperator.ca/contributor/jeremy-welter/[/url]) ,
Marc-Andre Pigeon ([url]https://www.manitobacooperator.ca/contributor/marc-andre-pigeon/[/url]) ,
Natalie Kallio ([url]https://www.manitobacooperator.ca/contributor/natalie-kallio/[/url])
"To get a glimpse into what was lost when the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool became Viterra, we can look to Australia. Like Canada, farmers in Australia no longer have a national wheat marketing board. It was eliminated in 2008, a few years before Canada’s.
Unlike in Canada, however, Australian farmers held on to their co-operative grain handling company, Co-operative Bulk Handling (CBH).
Well into its 90th year, CBH has prospered, despite a difficult operating environment not dissimilar to Canada’s, as well as periodic challenges to its mutuality. With a 62 per cent share of the grain handling business and A$4 billion in annual revenue, CBH had a record annual profit of A$497 million in 2022 and has reported record-breaking supply chain performance for its 2023 harvest.
Those results belong to CBH’s Australian farmer-members. CBH’s success can be attributed to its efforts to support its members by investment in the infrastructure — rail transport, port terminals, marketing, export and processing — needed to lower grain handling costs for producers.
As a result, CBH says average post-farmgate costs for its members are 15 per cent lower than for Australian farmers who rely on multinational corporations (including companies like Bunge and Viterra) for storage, movement, marketing and export.
Through CBH, Australian farmers don’t just have a powerful corporate entity looking out for their financial interests, but a company that can help them navigate government lobbying and relationships with agricultural input providers and their growing arsenal of data being used to power artificial intelligence applications."
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Comment