Marketing Board for Green Lentils?

[Incognito]

The CWB is as disciplined as the lentil exporters - ask the Algerian durum buyers.

Why wouldn't wheat farmers ask for the same information that lentil farmers received so they could make an informed decision about where their money is going?

Why wouldn't the CWB give their sales info to farmers so farmers can see the value they provide in wheat, barley and des bly?

The pulse industry is undisciplined.

So is the CWB.

The CWB is exporting far more wealth out of this country than the pulse industry.

That doesn't make either of them right - but SK Pulse had the guts to put out the report from someone credible with industry knowledge - not some economic model.

Does the Board of Directors have the guts enough to do the same?

[furrowtickler]

mustardman, everyone was/is willing to sell at those prices because they had to. The cash crunch from the past 4 years have put us all in that position, times will change sooner than later. The CWB is supossed to return a premium for our high quality grains, malt and hrsw are still a joke and will end up that way - where is that money going?
chuckc - which pool acounts? Will we ever know what they are giving the malt away for - no!! All I know is what I recieve for my malt which is a slap in the face b/c I have no choice!
The open market will always pay what the farmer is willing to sell for, so if the farmer needs cash flow because of poor returns/deliveries from other grains, theyfeed on that.
Times are about to change from price getters to price setters. It is already happening, the maket is going to have buy our grain not take it b/c we are desperate.

[charliep]

Back to lentils/the marketing board.

Is the proposal for a compulsory marketing board? If compulsory, would it be governed by the current CWB act? Would it be a part of the crops looked after by the current CWB?

What products and services would it offer farmers? Price pooling? Cash marketing tools?

I note that many of the pulse processors are community based/invested in versus being the evil multi nationals. What products and services would it offer processors? Price risk management? Inventory financing? Transaction security/backing? Who would take on this risk?

What products and services would it offer end users? Would this organization create more value in the buyers eyes or simply be a price negotiator on behalf of Canadian farmers?

[wd9]

CC, you do have me thinking. At first blush, as Charlie says, price discovery seems to be an issue here. How often we hear, rise in xxx commodity due to slow farmer selling. Are the Lentil growers simply that uninformed? Maybe, I don't grow lentils so am not sure.

I hope this thread can focus on Lentils and not the usual CWB rhetoric. This can be an interesting discusion.

[sparki]

A marketing board will not increase grower returns. A reduction in total supplies will. IN 2005 Canada produced 1.3 mmt of lentils together with 2004 carryin, there as a total supply of about 1.5 mmt
exports run about 600,000 per year and in 2005 actual disappearance was about 1 mmt. Highest on record. But still 500,00 mt carryin again on top of the 2006 crop.
Too many stocks. Period.
IN years when prices were high, there was a threat to the supply. That threat is a big factor in how buyers view the market. Without it, buyers are hand to mouth, flow is disrupted, buildups start to happen, cash flow issues with farmers and processing factilities
become a marketing factor and prices get depressed. To get out of this funk, the answer is simple. Stop growing so much. There is only a limited amount of tonnes that will fit an acceptable price range for the grower. Over that and the price range drops.

It is nothing more simple than that.

[food4u]

When I started growing lentils(many years ago)I was told by an experienced grower to either sell right off the combine or hold for Feb. This is green lentils and it has worked well for us. Have just started growing reds and that is a different story.

[cottonpicken]

I thought there was a major supply shortage globally with india even banning exports?

[wmoebis]

This might be a little off the wall but.

What if a the lentil producers got together and hired a group of people to market thier lentils all over the world for them. They could just pay them the cost of marketing including wages maybe, partialy, based on % of price recieved.

They could put all thier lentils in a pool so the marketing men would know what they had to sell. They could then offer delivery contracts on a % of lentils growen or on an acrage bases. They would take the highs and lows and divide it up evenly for everyone in each kind and grade.

They could go even further and instead of all the big trucks running up and down the highways they could build loading facilities up and down the railroads, maybe every fifteen to twenty miles, to load them onto cars to be shipped to large cleaning facilities and have them prepared for market. They could pay these guys for thier work only. Loading cars and cleaning etc.

They could then go to the Gov't and say look how much we are saving you on road repairs why don't you chanel some of that money to the railroads to cover thier costs and reduce the producers rail costs.

Cash advances for lentils could be ran by themselves instead of the CCGA still funded by the gov't. They may even be able to guarentee that the producer would get at least a bottom price.

Probably something like this has never been tried but it just might work.

Because lentils are in a small area of Canada they could call it something like The Canadian Lentil Board.

[sparki]

cottonpicken
The ban in India was for red split or footballed lentils. They usually supply neighbouring countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh. India did not want to sell themselves short with good internal demand.

[nw9flynn]

WE DO NOT NEED A LENTIL MARKETING BOARD!!!!!
Producers simply need to follow market signals better. That was what Boersch's point was during her speech. Going to a lentil marketing board would be a step backwards for the industry. She only suggested this as an extreme example. The best way to add value to lentils to to improve access to market information and allowing producers to make more informed decisions. Its that simple!