CWB Sales Strategy

[Zaphod]

Oct 22 (Reuters) - The Canadian Wheat
Board plans to export about 14 percent more grain in the year ending July 31, 2009, than initial forecasts because of a better-than-expected harvest, its chief operating officer said on Wednesday.
The global financial crisis has pressured grain prices and made buyers cautious, but overall, world stocks remain tight and wheat consumption is forecast to rise, Ward Weisensel
said.
"Customers are buying more hand-to-mouth. You want to run lower inventories because that ties up less capital," Weisensel said in an interview.
"But we came into this year with people pretty tight (on inventories) ... because of pricing," he noted.
The CWB, one of the world's largest wheat exporters, has targeted about 17.5 million tonnes of wheat, durum and barley exports, Weisensel said, up from August estimates of 15.3
million tonnes.

[Zaphod]

So how strategic is this? Countries are buying hand to mouth, so our strategy is to do what? We're going to sell more wheat. The problem is that we are already 750,000 tonnes behind last year. Time to pick up the pace.

And how will we make more sales in a more competitive environment? We're the Wheat Board. We're a monopoly seller and we'll keep prices high, right? Oh yeah, we're only a monopoly buyer. I guess we'll need to slash prices. And by the way, we haven't sold much this year yet because buyers are hand-to-mouth. Sorry!

Hold onto your shorts folks, the PROs are going to get really ugly, but maybe not until December.

[cropduster]

Anxious to hear how well the star marketers did with forward contracting ,if any?The CWB sure was bragging last year about beating those poor Americans who contracted their grain at a lower price...........now lets hear how they(CWB) did this year with the prices falling!!

[parsley]

The PRO will react right when the ballots arrive. Pars