Paying the CWB to Take Feed Barley Off Your Hands

[charliep]

Has anyone phoned in for a Producer Direct Sale quote for feed barley? This is the price you would do a buyback at if you were doing a sale into the US.

The price today is $163.40/t based Vancouver (this is an accurate reflection of current international barley prices). Your initial is $100/t under the 80 % EPO program ($80/t otherwise). To do a buyback (assuming the EPO option) would be to forgo your initial payment and then cut a cheque for an additional $63.40/t (I haven't included the deduction for risk on the EPO).

Your next step would be to deliver across the border in the US and sell for current Montana cash prices (about $125/t). You are out of pocket $60/t minus what ever adjustment/final payments you would recieve (final payment forecast from July - $25/t).

This is an indication of the problems with the CWB and feed barley. There is a demand vaccuum in feed barley that needs to be filled this fall to help offset the ugliness in the livestock industry. The are sales opportunities in the world barley markets in Oct., Nov. and Dec. before new crop Aussie comes off. If the CWB makes sales in 2004, there is a distinct probability that the $125/t PRO (port) will be a reality.

There seems to be something wrong here.

[charliep]

The Montana $125/t is in Canadian dollars. You would have to deduct the cost of trucking as well to come up with your farm gate price.

[charliep]

It's time we had cash pricing made in Canada for all Canadian Grains. The CWB does not work anymore. We need daily pricing in a world where reaction time is on a daily bases not monthly or worse yearly.

Why must we market grain in a horse and wagon manner when everything else is at supersonic speed including pricing of grain.

[AdamSmith]

Charlie,

Are you suprised by this?

This is just so, so Canadian.

What's the point of getting mad, what's the point of even being concerned?

When you have farmers who couldn't care less whether barley is worth $3.00 or $1.50 or even if they have to pay the CWB to take it.

How do we fix this if no one will even admit there's a problem?

Does Goodale care? No he doesn't. Does Chretien care? No. Does Paul Martin? No
Does Klein, Calvert, or Doer? No, not one of them give a damn.

The CWB initial on feed barley here in SW MB is .34 cents per bushel and Adrian Measner thinks the CWB will export 500,000 tonnes of feed barley. At first I thought he was out of his tree but then I got thinking that he knows his farmer supporters better than me because he knows that there are enough farmers who are so blindly loyal to the CWB that if the CWB gives them .34 for their feed barley those same farmers will be so thankful to the CWB because they didn't have to drive all the way to China to sell their grain.

This,Charlie, is what were up against and I just can't see how we can change anything when,let's face it, were dealing with idiots and morons.

We have to be, otherwise this never would be allowed to happen.

[cropduster]

As I said in another thread , these clowns have no clue.They are not truly accountable to western producers.Seems like the cowboys ,with tears in their eyes, will get their badly needed `cheap feed`.Barley producers have NO choice.

[rodbradshaw]

Chairman Ritter was on Jim Fisher's show today talking about the new shipping system and how the cars will follow the producer and that the producer would get the benefit of any premium paid by the agent for that grain instead of the pooling accounts. Is this a change in philosiphy? Why could that logic not be extended to US sales as obviously there has been a change at the Board table or did the Chairman misspeak?

[charliep]

Just a note the CWB announced a mid month pool return outlook for feed barley. Current PRO for feed barley is $147/t basis port, up $22/t from the July. Using the 80 % EPO alternative, that put initial payment at about $70/t. You then have a promise of a further $30/t final.

Thoughts?

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie;

It can NOT be more obvious than in the summer of 03, that the CWB pooling system assures farmers of the lowest possible price, NOT a Premium price.

If grain farmers don't open their eyes this year, when will they see the light?

Simply astounding, that we can collectively all be so stupid!

The CWB "soother" is so calming and nice the suck on... I am sure Goodale is hoping we all suck on it till we fall back asleep AGAIN. At least with pooling we can be assured our neighbour won't be profitable and get ahead of Us... and the livestock guys will get the cheapest feed grains on earth this year!

Hope Goodale does a good deal of choking on the 02-03 pool deficits!

[rodbradshaw]

Tom4cwb

I believe that most farmers are suffering from to much interference ( drouight, grasshoppers, BSE)to make a judgement on CWB payments right now. Maybe when they go to make those November loan payments and they have to cash to do so the heat will finally get turned up.
Rod

[jensend]

To put it politely: What the CWB can't screw up they'll crap on. I may not be as well versed in the ineptitude of the CWB as some people but it seems to me the last couple of years have seen new depths of incompetence. The federal government leaves us swinging in the wind in the midst of an international subsidy war and then confiscates our production. This really isn't working. I think the cattlemen (and I am one) are seeing what grain farmers have been putting up with for years. Take care of yourself because the feds are only there to penalize you for living in Canada.

[jensend]

Goodale says the CWB is in the control of farmers now. If that were the case how come the federal government set the intial payments for wheat and barley?

Please will someone give us an open market so we can make are own mistakes with marketing. The CWB is an insult to good marketing.

[NeilS]

AdamSmith
I believe you have unfairly included Klein in you list of uncaring politicians. He has been a lone voice from within the political establishment in trying to dislodge the CWB from the farmers back. Unfortunately, the others on your list certainly belong there.