CWB Rejects 50% /30% of Wheat

[TOM4CWB]

Vader;

You said; "Can you ignore reality simply to support your hatred of the CWB? How can you claim that the LORD is on your team? I find nothing more disgusting than those who use religious righteousness as part of their arguments."



1. I do not hate the CWB...
just the "evil" things it does from time to time.

The CWB "evils" tends to be limited largely to the "single desk" monopoly.

The Use of this "evil power" is so important to the CWB... That the CWB spends millions (from our grain revenue) on this theory that should never be even practised let alone rubbed in my face every time I hear a statement or see an ad from the CWB.

2. Vader;

My LORD and God allows freedom of choice... the freedom to do good or "evil" is ours as a member of the human race. This character is what seperates us from the rest of the created Universe.

It is voluntary and I do not have the right to force anyone to put my judgement in place... this is a voluntary action they themselves are given the right by GOD: to claim; and exercise.

This "right of others to choose" is the very essence of Civilisation and humanity.

Wars are fought because of this "evil" alone.

This freedom to choose is the foundation of my very faith, hope and Love in my fellow human beings. I Will NEVER apologize for the right of others to choose and make their own decisions.

I will stand on this fact... "evils" of all kinds are perpetrated by those who "believe" they have the "right" to force others to do what they want...

And this is especially evil when it is for greed... economic gain... power... involves coveting others property, assets... or human relationships.

The CWB "single desk" squarely falls into these "evils" of coveting and breaks the 10th Commandment... which in essence IS all of the other 9 Commandments combined.

3. Sorry if the very essence of my existance offends you...

Peace be with you... thanks for the opportunity to speak to these issues!

[Vader]

Tom if you really and truly find the CWB to be an evil power and your God and LORD condones wars against such powers how can you not hate the CWB and work diligently towards its destruction.

This brings to mind a saying which I suspect your God and LORD also condones and that is "All is fair in love and war".

How far does your God and LORD allow you to go in your war against the CWB when combined with your obvious strong convictions?

[sshiels]

Vader,

a few items back, you said that "a 50% contract acceptance is a MARKET SIGNAL. Pay attention." What good does paying attention to this do when you have all your durum in the bin already? IMHO, that is just plain dumb. Does this mean that nobody should grow any durum next year? If we only need half this year, then we should only need the other half next year?? Nice logic.

[Vader]

sshiels, all I am saying is that both price and delivery opportunities should be taken into account when growing a crop. Contract acceptance levels have been less than 100% earlier than just this year.

I think that you will see inventory building in other crops this year as well. Lentils come to mind. Perhaps people will choose not to grow as many lentils realizing that the market is oversupplied.

[AdamSmith]

Vader, Does the world not take into account total supplies? If the world knows that there is a million tonnes of durum locked up in prairie grain bins, they also know that it has to come to market sooner or later and the current price will reflect that. Or are the buyers of durum so unsophisticated that they can't read a StatsCan report or a usda supply and demand report?

withholding grain from the market in order to influence price has just as many negitive effects as possible positive ones.

For instance The canadian grain farmer would have been a lot better off had the CWB tried very very hard to blow out all the feed wheat and barley grown no matter what the price.CAIS could have made up the difference. That way we wouldn't have had the burdensom carryover which we still have and we could of at least had a feed grain market that had some sembelence of normalcy.

You see Vader, the rest of the world is taking advantage of new technologies in order to increase yeild and yes that has caused a decrease in price but that has been offset for them by the higher yeild. But we haven't had the increase yeild so our suffering is even more profound.

By the way I'm thinking mostly of feed grains but this also applies to milling wheat as well.

A neighbour went combining corn in Nebraska and was doing 260 bpa corn.
How can I compete against that with 70 bpa barley???

This is what today's reality is and I really don't think the CWB has the foggiest clue as to how to address this. Other than pious rhetoric.

[charliep]

AdamSmith

As a note, an open market does not mean a farmer would have to sell - it is their decision. I have talked to several farmers who are going to lock their bins this year and carry grain. It is based on the financial ability to do so and not necessarily my recommendation but is their approach.

Perhaps the question is how much control should individual farmers have over delivery decisions and therefore market supplies versus giving up this right to the CWB.

I would note there is lots of insentive in the current system to over contract given the probability the CWB will contract 100 % of this years durum inventory is somewhere between zero and none.

[AdamSmith]

Charlie, I understand that the open market doesn't mean that grain won't be held off the market. With 2/3 of my 2004 barley still sitting in my bins, oh boy do I know that. Rejected Malt in August 05 by the way.

My thinking was/is that because of the wrath of nature we grew an abnomally large amount of feed grain last year. And because of our quirky system the domestic market was and still is essentially the only outlet for this grain. The CWB is the sole outlet for export and they just seemed to shrug their sholders and take a pass on trying to help get rid of this grain.

Let's all be real here. The CWB is an instrument of the government of Canada and had the Liberals gave two hoots about the situation they could have instructed the CWB to blow this stuff out of the country and fast. They could have made up for the low low price in any number of ways. CAIS or a direct offset payment, whatever.

Oh sure it's not perfect free marketing, but who's kidding who? We don't have that anyway and at least we would of had a low carry out of feed grains and better prices today.

Just thinking outloud here.

[charliep]

I agree. Perhaps what needed is a price to base a decision on versus a theoretical payment. I note the CWB has moved close to a million tonnes of barley since August (a lot of it feed) with the grain companies guarantee of $2/bu in Alberta a major drive. Don't know what kind of a deal the CWB cut with grain companies but it worked.

[parsley]

charliep, you ask, "can anyone help me in identifying a new markets for durum?"

Creating markets is limitless.

http://www.forbes.com/global/2002/1125/036_2.html

Prairie Pasta was on the right track.

It's called innovative thinking.And it cannot be stifled or discouraged. Or arrested at the border.

The most valuable resource that agriculture has is young folks with some new vision..the right to dream.....and the energy to follow through...and the right to fail.

Parsley

[TOM4CWB]

Vader;

Nice try...

Read my threads... non-violence is the theme obviously is key to "freedom of choice"...

Force is the CWB's key... to the monopoly...

[charliep]

As a comment, it is too bad there are some some actual prices/price guarantee's associated with the current CWB guaranteed delivery contract on feed wheat. A lot of farmers are stuck with piles of tough and damp feed wheat with limited capability to dry and perhaps higher costs than this same activity could be done at an elevator. Provided the right price signal, a lot of this might move into the export market.

I note the deadline for this program is today.

[Vader]

AdamSmith, correct me if I am wrong but I thought that the CWB accepted 100% of the feed wheat and #5 durum that was offered to it last crop year. So the did "blow it all out" to the extent that producers were inclined to take those blowout prices. And like Charlie says Korea will always take more at prices that are competitive with corn.

[TOM4CWB]

Vader;

Good comment on Korea.

If the CWB is a master marketer, why are we not cross hedging feed wheat on corn futures and putting $1/buUS in our pocket from the hedge right now.

This would have allowed the CWB to sell millions of tonnes of feed wheat at $1.20/bu more... and solved our problems with our wheat.

I begged the CWB in the 2002-03 to start a hedge program of this nature and was sneered at and joked at like I was from another planet!

When are we going to wake up and start marketing our wheat in a professional manner that produces profitable results?

[AdamSmith]

Vader, just curious here, what percentage of feed grains grown in the desegnated area in 2004 was sold into the export market via the CWB?

You missed my point entirely.

Yes I'm sure you sold 100% of what was offered but what was offered was a pitance of what was there to be exported and should have been exported.

Do you think MORE or LESS feed grain would have been exported in 2004 if we had an open market in feed grains?

MORE or LESS ???


And by the way, don't give us any price premium crap, because we all know that the CWB gets zero premium for feed grains. Even the CWB's own commisioned studies have said that.

So were stuck with a huge amount of 2004 feed grain carry over. I suppose this is great for the cattlemen and the hog farmer but it is bordering on disaster for the grain farmer.

I just find it so irresponsible for the feds and the CWB to continue to promote us growing low yielding high quality milling wheat and when nature turns it into feed, they just look the other way.

[silverback]

But the one line he said was "the PRO's are market signals - pay attention!"

If that is true, then I guess some of us will just hand the keys back to the banks, fertilizer dealers, seed dealers, fuel dealers, machinery dealers, etc..., because the pro's are saying to me "you were stupid to try and grow grain this year and you would be stupid to try again next year!"

Surely it is our own fault for getting to this point somehow isn't it??

The colonies seem to be able to keep expanding, maybe I will just see if they need more land. They are good CWB producers aren't they?