the one that started it all

[jensend]

at least as far as ag commodities go.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/surge-in-cotton-production-drops-record-prices/article1960562/

[Happytrails]

Jen you have got to throw you lot it with the open market. Allow market forces to allocate scarce resources and match the commodities supplies with demands. The alternative is central planning which has a poor record IMHO. Of course there is no perfect open market but market forces are so strong that they will always prevail eventually. Our supply of food is too important to allow it to be controlled by anything else. Cheers, HT

[TOM4CWB]

HappyTrails,

All too true.

As a wise fellow said last week:

"In any government system... you should expect 30-40% loss to uncompetitive government inefficiency."

Which is exactly why the CWB Monopoly clearly has lost 'designated area' growers of wheat and barley much more than it can possibly gain.

Central planning in Russia... Eastern Europe, even China... fails to endure the test of time.

Canada is no different. In an atmosphere of chaos and natural disasters... the last folks that have effectively managed these challenges... other than pointing fingers... are paid bureaucrats.

[jensend]

gets sillier every day. the point of the post was that the price of cotton is expected to fall by 50% by the end of the year because production responded to price so quickly. pretty sure it didn't have anything to do with the cwb but if tom isn't judicious with his meds who knows where this will end up.

[TOM4CWB]

Jensend,

The CWB says they can control all that... without market forces... hold back supply when the price is high... to cause it to spike even more... yet higher... all because of the CWB single desk.

I truly hope you can actually see the connection.

When the rest of the world... sees high wheat prices... what do they do jensend?

THEY GROW MORE WHEAT.

So... us fools stuck with carry over wheat and durum... that just dropped by 30-50%... BECAUSE of the single desk... OUR SHIP IS SUNK!

The folks with one or 2 quarters of wheat/Durum... found some way to get it delivered through multi permitbooks etc... so they had no inventory to take a bath on.

So... PLEASE TELL ME WHY THERE IS NO CONNECTION HERE jensend!

[jensend]

uh maybe because the whole article is about the market for cotton and makes no reference, implied or otherwise, to marketing boards, including the cwb. i posted it to show how quickly production can respond to prices. im guessing you've somehow implicated the wheat board in the gold market as well. elucidate if you please.

[Happytrails]

To be fair the article does point out that growing more cotton reduces production of other crops. Tom and I came up with the idea that the board distorts market signals on our own.

[TOM4CWB]

OK Jensend... I bite:

If this were to be only about cotton... with NO parallels or lessons to be drawn for Canadian Agriculture...

Since we do not grow one pound of cotton... what have I missed here?

Supply Management?

Potatoes?

Sugar Beets?

Dry Beans?

Lentils?

Corn or Soy?

Since looking for answers for this question takes my small mind... to the grain storage bins we have...and back... What got you started here with cotton?

What did cotton start?

Fill me in... what did I miss???

[jensend]

evidently you missed a lot but maybe no more than usual. cotton was one of the first ag commodities to start this last price runup. now acres have increased by 14% and prices are forecast to drop by 50% but still be 2/3 above historical averages. so production responded to price and you can get some idea of the elasticity of price from the movement against increased supply. nothing to do with marketing boards or any of your other not-so-magnificent obsessions. read the article for what it says. i posted it as an indication of what can happen to grain prices if a decent world crop is grown.

[gregpet]

Sorta like durum? Thanks for the eye opener, but we have experienced this first hand already.

[jensend]

but people tend to forget because this time is different.

[TOM4CWB]

Jensend,

You only told HALF the story.

"implausible or insane"... the Cotton market! Sounds just like the CWB marketing our wheat... only CDN 'designated area' growers are REQUIRED to subsidise wheat exports... and Manitoba wheat growers get the most benefit! (CWB ship purchase proves pool payments on grain freight)

Sooo Jensend... this further proves... cotton has as much politics driving prices... as does CWB wheat returns to 'designated area' growers.

You can't fool me Jensend... why indicate I am half baked to bring up CWB marketing issues... when cotton has just as many marketing distortions as wheat???

Background:

"What could be more outrageous than the hefty subsidies the U.S. government lavishes on rich American cotton farmers?

How about the hefty subsidies the U.S. government is about to start lavishing on rich Brazilian cotton farmers?
(See the top 10 green ideas of 2009.)


If that sounds implausible or insane, well, welcome to U.S. agricultural policy, where the implausible and the insane are the routine. Our perplexing $147.3 million–a-year handout to Brazilian agribusiness, part of a last-minute deal to head off an arcane trade dispute, barely even qualified as news; on Tuesday, April 6, it was buried in the 11th paragraph of this Reuters story. (The New York Times gave it 10th-paragraph play.) If you're perplexed, here's the short explanation: We're shoveling our taxpayer dollars to Brazilian farmers to make sure we can keep shoveling our taxpayer dollars to American farmers — which is, after all, the overriding purpose of U.S. agricultural policy. Basically, we're paying off foreigners to let us maintain our ludicrous status quo.
(See a photo gallery of farm life in America's heartland.)


I've previously written that federal farm subsidies are bad fiscal, environmental and agricultural policy; bad water, energy and health policy; and bad foreign policy, to boot. Cotton subsidies are a particularly egregious form of corporate welfare, funneling about $3 billion a year to fewer than 20,000 planters who tend to use inordinate amounts of water, energy and pesticides. But the World Trade Organization (WTO) doesn't prohibit dumb subsidies. It only prohibits subsidies that distort trade and hurt farmers in other countries.

And yes, U.S. cotton subsidies do that too. By encouraging Americans to plant cotton even when prices are low, they promote overproduction and further depress prices. An Oxfam study found that removing them entirely would boost world prices about 10%, which would be especially helpful to the 20,000 subsistence cotton growers in Africa. In 2005 the WTO upheld a challenge that Brazil had filed against the cotton subsidies as well as some export-credit guarantees for all American farm products, but the U.S. essentially ignored the ruling.

So last August, the WTO gave Brazil the right to impose punitive tariffs and lift patent protections on $829 million worth of U.S. goods — including nonfarm products like cars, drugs, textiles, chemicals, electronics, movies and music. The retaliation was supposed to start Wednesday, April 7, and it would have driven home how our relentless coddling of farmers hurts other American exporters, paralyzing our efforts to open overseas markets to the nonfarm goods and services that make up 99% of our economy. But at the 11th hour, negotiators from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Agriculture Department reached a temporary deal with their Brazilian counterparts, so the retaliation is on hold.

The obvious solution, in an alternate universe, would have been for the U.S. to get rid of its improper subsidies. But the current farm bill does not expire until 2012, and the congressional agriculture committees don't want to mess with it because, well, they just don't. Senate Agriculture Chairman Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and ranking Republican Saxby Chambliss of Georgia on Wednesday praised both governments for finding an alternative solution and pledged to "explore modifications" in 2012. Maybe they will, but don't bet on it — cotton, after all, is not unheard of in Arkansas and Georgia. (Here's the top recipient of federal cotton subsidies, with a cool $24.2 million from 1995 to 2006. Yes, that's an Arkansas farm.)

The U.S. negotiators did agree to modify the complicated export-guarantee program to make it less of an export-subsidy program. They also agreed to ease restrictions on Brazilian beef that have been justified as an effort to protect Americans from foot-and-mouth disease — and criticized as an effort to protect U.S. cattlemen from competition. But the big-ticket item is the settlement's "technical assistance" fund of $147.3 million, prorated, for Brazilian cotton growers. That just happens to be the precise amount of the retaliation the WTO had approved for the improper cotton subsidies. According to the U.S. press release, the fund will be replenished every year "until passage of the next farm bill or a mutually agreed solution to the cotton dispute is reached." So the total cost will exceed the price tag of the infamous Alaskan bridge to nowhere, which was at least designed for Alaskans; the annual cost will far exceed the $100 million President Obama ordered his Cabinet to cut from the federal budget last year.
(See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)


Of course, helping Brazil's Big Ag — which is just as big as our Big Ag — won't stop the U.S. (or Brazil!) from dumping cut-rate cotton into the world market, hurting subsistence cotton growers in Mali and Burkina Faso. (I've heard the deal may include modest aid for African farmers, but it's not in the press release, and government officials never replied to me with answers to my questions.) But there is at least one piece of good news from the fields: U.S. cotton subsidies have been declining lately, because U.S. cotton farmers want to be independent of government assistance.

Just kidding! U.S. cotton subsidies have been declining lately, but only because the government-subsidized ethanol boom has made government-subsidized corn and government-subsidized soybeans even more lucrative for farmers. The fix is still in when it comes to American agriculture. Congress might "explore modifications" in 2012, but somehow its explorations and modifications always end up shoveling even more cash..."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1978963,00.html

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1978963,00.html#ixzz1IAyNqXih

[TOM4CWB]

Fransisco et al,

Since you folks grow/live in Manitoba, I was only stating a partial picture.

The real 'big picture' problem being that lost 1/3rd efficiency cost of a monopoly government agency... that requires the cross-subsidisation in the first place from the western part of the designated area...