The problem with marketing choice

[Cockshutt]

Let's all be honest with here, the CWB will never change, it can only die.

For marketing choice to work, both parties must try to make it work. The CWB will never try to make it work and the farmers who want freedom will have no reason to give a damn about that side of things. I know if I'm free to sell my grain to anyone other than the CWB, I'll never give them a second thought. The CWB will be left with all the non-business minded farmers and the old boys who will have nothing to offer the CWB in the way of helping them be relevent in an open market system. The commercial farmer will never deal with them again because the CWB has made too many enemies by attacking them for too long. The CWB has made their own bed and soon, they will have to lie in it.

I don't understand why some keep talking about market choice. It can never happen. To many hard feelings have developed for the CWB to survive. Even the CWB lovers have convinced themselves the CWB will have no value if it loses it's single desk status. So when it does, they won't deal with it either. Who's left? No one that's who.

The only solution is to shut it down entirely. Put all this crap behind us and let's all just move on.

I know it will take a move by government to make it happen, but that will come in due time, and I'm not saying don't continue to raise proper hell about it until they do. All I'm saying is forget the dual market thing, it can never happen.

[TOM4CWB]

Cockshutt;

Sad to say... but when "single desk" farmers come up to me and say I should be in Jail... and to throw the key away for a long long time... when I have been trying to save the CWB and make it viable in the long term...

At this point... I shake my head in frustration... and God forbid... think the thoughts you have just expressed!

So you may be right... but as I fight for market choice, I must also fight to retain a reasonable option for CWB single desk farmers... cause the tell me they cannot market... which may be true.

I guess this is Just the respectful thing to do... part of our passive Canadian spirit... we really don't want to offend anyone... at least many of us want things to be fair.

But as most in life soon learn.. seldom are things fair!

[ianben]

Tom
I must admit even I have been surprised by the apparent hate which already exist with those who want to keep the CWB.
They will never be fair when it comes to comes to blaming people for their troubles.
In their eyes it will always be Tom and not the CWB.
Is this why government wants farmers to be responsible for CWB so thats who other farmers blame?
Duals are for trucks but what is marketing choice?

[Braveheart]

Cockshutt, I agree completely. There have been many valient attempts to create models for a workable voluntary CWB. There have been countless exhausting hours spent trying to work with wheat board supporters and gov't policy wizards to create the framework and rules for "marketing choice". These were all in vain.

The single desk paradigm is very powerful and those that live that paradigm are not open to any change.

If marketing choice, or a voluntary wheat board was forced upon the industry, the industry would still be in chaos. You comments correctly define what would happen in such a scenario and I don't need to rework that ground.

The point I want to make however is that the grain industry in Canada has never been is worse condition. I don't mean just price, I mean the whole industry. Grain companies and farmers are going broke. Transportation and logistics planning is just waiting for its' next big meltdown. Value adding to wheat and barley has literally "gone south".

We need an industry that promotes itself and its' products proudly to the world. Instead we have an industry that is an embarrasement on the world trade front as well as a chaotic mess domestically.

This will only be solved when the CWB is no more. Not voluntary, just gone. Maybe existing to promote Canadian wheat like the US Wheat Associates do, but that's all. Ironically, the wheat board which was supposed to deliver stability to the wheat industry continues to do exactly the opposite. It's time for it to go.

Braveheart

[TOM4CWB]

Ianben;

Before 1993 we had marketing choice... and as the Commissoner Hein said... there was not a thing the CWB could do about it.

Before 1993 the CWB used the single desk monopoly ideals to try attract more non-board grains to the CWB... and lost Oats and Canola over the previous couple of decades... Canola by a thin margin vote (1970's) to bring Canola under CWB control... while Oats was removed (1989) without a vote... after being under control since WWII.

The Supreme Court ruled (1973)the CWB did not have monopoly control of domestic feed (hauled by the farmer himself) but the most interesting case (NOLAN)was decided BY the British courts (1953)... that the CWB had the right to expropriate a commercial grain owners grain... after the CWB lost in all Canadian courts INCLUDING the Supreme Court of Canada!

TO say this CWB has had a ...loonngg... and ...strange... history legally would be the understatement of the Century, let alone the CWB's political mytholigical history!

I digressed!

Does more need to be said?

[Cockshutt]

Tom, why should we (progressive free market thinkers) care whether some people can't or won't market there own wheat?

I'm sure we all know some farmers who are not the most productive farmers. They are always 3 weeks behind with there seeding, spraying and harvesting. This lasts only as long as the money and equity holds out and then they're gone. That's the way of the world. I don't see marketing to be any different.

Wouldn't our industry be a whole lot healthier if we quit spending so much time and effort trying to help those who refuse to help themselves. Droughts and floods aside, we need to let the weak and unfit go down. It's the only way this industry will ever be healthy again.

Back to the CWB, many of those who say they can't market, have never even tried. What I've witnessed in my community is that the one who defend the CWB the most are usually bitter old men who can't stand seeing someone else succeed. They are usually some of the most selfish, self centered people I know and had they spent even half the time trying to improve their own operations as they did worrying about what others were doing they would have been much happier and much wealthier.

I have no time for people like that and as such I couldn't care less whether they survive or fail, operating in a free and open market.

[les]

Cockshutt I agree with you 100%.I have been saying get rid of the CWB altogether but have been told so many times that it wont happen that I am begining to believe it.I would love to see the CWB dismantled, but if it cant then I want free choice to market my own grain that I paid so dearly to grow

[les]

Cockshutt sounds like you live in my neighborhood when you talk about some of the farmers. Its a small world but thats what holds up progress.

[TOM4CWB]

Guys;

How do we love our nieghbour as our selves if we doom them to failure... even if they have been the biggest reason the CWB is about to be dismantled...

These folks have as much right to exist as we do... how do we get past this issue without a WAR... cause in the past history... when people were in the state of mind that exists in some quarters now... that would be the result!

Of course you know I am not advocating WAR... I am just stateing that this is the eventual result of a failure to create a society that respects all citizens.

Minister Goodale is the sicko that has brought this failure to respect each other and encouraged disrespectful behaviour ... and even the Standing Parliamentary Committee could see how destructive the issue CWB has become!

Since Minister Goodale took over the CWB in 1993... the CWB has turned on farmers... and become a monster that is sudicidal.

[parsley]

cockshutt,

The reason that many of these set-in-stoners love the Wheat Board is because they believe they get more money. They don't but they think they will or do. Their main charactersitic is that they are greedy. They want a piece of YOUR action. They want a piece of your wealth and your earnings, because theirs is the politics of envy, and not through co-operation or mutual respect, but through force.

And I don't want them as my business partners.

Parsley

[Cockshutt]

parsley,

I don't want them as my business partners either. But as long as the CWB exists, they will always be there trying to shove their nose into my business. Not to be helpful, but to be destructive.

I think the Canadian Wheat Board, has been, and continues to be the MOST destructive thing on the prairies. As such, I don't believe it has any redeeming value what-so-ever. By promoting the idea of a dual-market or marketing choice, you are indirectly saying that it does have some redeeming value. You are also saying that you're just not sure about the open market and need to hedge your bets.

I think all the groups who have been promoting choice have made things worse because they are afraid to promote an honest to god open market. Afraid to sound extreme, afraid to offend someone, maybe even afraid of the wheatboard itself. This is no way to promote something, by being afraid to stand for something real.

If there is a group out there that is prepared to stand out and promote a real open market, an open market without the governments wheat board, I'll join in a heartbeat. Until then I guess I'll just wait and watch the fools repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Even the so called pro-choice wheat board director candidates keep talking about preserving the CWB and wanting a strong CWB, I really wonder if they even know what they believe in? It really doesn't inspire this open marketer to vote. I'm still trying to decide if I'll even bother.

[bobn]

cockshutt,

I don't think those that say they are in favor of marketing choice are afraid of the open market because they don't promote a specific open market system. It's the nature of the open market to develop on it's own. In the absence of government meddling a diverse open market system will develop. Any discussion on what type of system to develop would only result in endless discussion going no where, not unlike the current debate within the CWB on how to emulate a free market without actually being one. It's not our right to force any specific system on anyone else. That's the whole point of 'choice'. The existing regime seems bent on finding some magic pill that will soothe the concerns of the ones wanting choice. It's never going to happen! We all have our own version of how we will sell our grain. To clarify "choice" must mean complete freedom to market to whom ever you choose, with farmers and businesses who buy farmers grain, allowed to export out of Canada. I really don't care if the CWB survives anymore than I care about any other business or Cooperative. Goodale has created this entity that can't ever work as it is now, but it's not really up to those who want 'choice' to fix it.

[parsley]

cockshutt,

I would love to wave a magic wand and make the CWB Act disappear. With it would go everthing I despise about the Wheat Board system, and farmers could then sell wheat/barley in the same way they sell the rest of their crops.

I have never softsold wanting an open market. That being said, I don't think there is a hope of ever convincing the Bloc to vote against the Board, particularly if you heard them speak in debate in the House last week about the CWB and marketing choice. Or the farmers in Saskatchewan who had Dick Proctor deliver their socialist philosphy at the same debate.

We simply don't have enough voting clout to kill the Act to make a change for more marketing freedom, cockshutt. That's reality. That's why so many have moved on to:

1. Growing non-Boards grains
2. Finding marketing relief within the existing Act.

Frankly, when I get an export license for the grain, I don't care if wilagro needs/wants the Board to market his grain for him. If his marketing costs rise 50%, that's his choice cause he'll be proud to pay them if they triple. Board groupies WANT planned marriages and forced weddings. They want it that way.

I want a divorce from my forced wedding and I don't want any more forced marriages.

Parsley

[parsley]

One more thing cockshutt,

Organic farmers have completely developed their own market, singularily. Developed a method of production. Developed community peer groups to support production methods. Developed FOB farm transportation rate systems. Developed mills and cleaning facilities. Developed identity preserved. Developed liasons with business. Scorned government handouts for startup. Developed close ties with consumers. Developed value-added in communities.

These are not really a bunch of mealy-mouths afraid to voice an opinion or to tackle/ befriend an open market with open arms.

Believe me.

Parley

[bmj182]

When I was in university it was
estimated that 9/10 farmers would
be worse off than they are now and
1/10 would be way better off than
now, I'm not pro CWB, but from what
I've seen of neighbors ability to
interpret and act on future's prices,
puts, options, etc. it scares me to
think what might happen to a lot of
people that won't adapt!