Grain Supply Chain Reducing Export Competitiveness

[charliep]

An interesting article. Maybe the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence.

[URL="http://www.fullyloaded.com.au/logistics-news/1505/grain-supply-chain-reducing-export-competitiveness/"]Australia[/URL]

[bucket]

Efficient railways. Hahaha.

Too funny.

[hobbyfrmr]

In Canada it is a shining example of the blame game. Grain companies blame rail service, rail companies blame the grain companies for wrong product or lack thereof. Unaccountability for both parties, they profit from it all. Why would they want to change ! Status quo is working beautifully.

[westernvicki]

Charlie, from what I read of this is a continuance of the AUSTRALIAN attitude & focus of: HOW TO CREATE A COMPETITIVE GLOBAL INDUSTRY

Canadas advantage of year long storage is a result of the nature of our industry: unlike many other countries we stock and store grain on our farms: we have inventory year long.

The message I read of this is the ongoing concern of how to be the most convenient and competitive supplier, a topic that Canada should take up in spades, as INDEED our cost to market competitive advantage has decreased in recent years and this erosion should be a serious concern to all legislators as we are indeed a land locked nation.

Across the pond, Australia has taken some interesting moves:
They have legislated open port access to insure competitive access to berth to players who do not have owned capital. Their research and plant breeding is organized into one central end use royalty. It is this same focus that notes our advantages which happen to be stock on hand all year long, which could lead to the promotion of more on farm storage there... who knows. What this is is part of the strategic plant insure Australian agriculture has competitive global access and is a reliable supplier.

We should take a page out of their binder and focus on what we need to do to insure the shipping crisis of 2013 never happens again and that suppliers of all sizes of assets can get to market with a reasonable guarantee of service levels.

The world of grain in a competitive place we need to be efficient and reliable suppliers to do this efficiency must move beyond the farm into the supply chain as farmers efficiency can only go so far in retaining our competitive advantage .

[blackpowder]

Interesting article. Makes you wonder who to believe sometimes. The first time I've heard our on farm storage called a commercial advantage.

[bucket]

Westernvicki

It happened in 1997 and in 2013.

If western canada gets 2 timely rains this year. Ask anyone involved on the last shipping crisis if any industry player is prepared to handle a 60 mmt crop.

The answer is a resounding no.

It was all smoke and mirrors that they fixed the infrastructure deficit for moving commodities in this country.

And talking to any of the resident politicians that should have the fortitude to make a plan can be very depressing.

Blackpowder

That meant to say on farm storage was an advantage to the commercials or graincos because farmers once again built the storage infrastructure for them for free.