Will the CWB Ever Stop Pillaging Organics?

[chaffmeister]

Chuck:

In any debate you’ll often find both sides intractable – it’s certainly true here so don’t demean Parlsey or anyone else in this debate on the basis of their conviction to their ideals when based on logic, facts and their own experience.

(Chuck – are you organic? Do you have the same frustrating experiences with the CWB? If not, can you at least see that it may be frustrating and costly to those involved? If you can’t, what is blinding you so badly that you can’t even put yourself in someone else’s shoes for a minute?)

What I feel CAN be questioned is the blind-faith stance by most CWB-supporters (which is why I call them “the Borg”). When presented with facts, they disregard them as if they were made up or they don’t even respond; when confronted with logic, they accuse you of twisting the facts or making things up, or accuse you of not having the credentials to say what you're saying. I am particularly frustrated with the likes of Vader who repeatedly fails to respond to my direct questions (which is why I call him Evader) or others like him that offer nothing concrete to the debate – just rhetoric and platitudes.

My understanding of the organic issue is this:
- Most (I hear about 75%) of the organic farmers out there don’t want the CWB to be involved.
- The buy-back doesn’t just add a level of bureaucracy and cost, it also adds a significant risk to the organic farmer.
- There is absolutely no reason for the CWB conventional pool and its ultimate performance and returns to have any impact on the organic business. This stifles market development and opportunity.
- Those in the organic business have made the appropriate investments in time, effort and certification to pursue this niche market. The CWB’s involvement adds nothing to the equation; in fact it is a detriment. (This is based on logic, not ideology.)

Now if you have anything factual or logical that counters any of this, please provide it – in the spirit of an open and fair discussion. But unless it's based on sound economic, financial or operational FACTS and reasoning, you better expect a dissenting response (and not just from Parsley).


Chuck, you also said:
<i>…many of the critics of the CWB are single mindedly obsessed with the problems real or not at the CWB but have little to say when there are problems with the "free market" marketing system.</i>
Don’t take this the wrong way, but why in the world would you expect anyone to change topics away from what they wanted to discuss in the first place, just because you want to? Stay focused, boy. If you want to talk more about the woes of the pulse industry, let’s start a new thread. I’m in – I’ll contribute. Who knows, Parsley may as well. What I find frustrating is that you don’t want to deal with the CWB issues – you want to criticize the non-CWB market as a way of supporting the CWB (I assume).

<i>What this indicates to me is their thinking is selective and highly political. When people such as Parsley and perhaps yourself act as they have all the answers and refuse to have an open and fair discussion it indicates a very narrow view of the world.</i>
I’d love to have an open and fair discussion – but you and other CWB supporters don’t want to listen and respond appropriately to FACTS. Take a read on some of the issues around organic marketing; listen to those that have made public their problems; and then come up with something concrete on the issue – not just a criticism of them because they won’t deal with another problem of your choosing.

[parsley]

chuckchuck,

Discussion material is what you asked for.

Organic grain can be freed-up easily.

All we need is the CWB to grant licenses the same as they already do for Eastern organic farmers.

Granting licenses will not harm the CWB, but it will help farmers.

Organic producers selling their own grain has no affect on CWB marketing which is defined in the CWB Act as the CWB buying and pooling of prairie grain voluntarily offered for sale by producers to the CWB.

The buyback issue could be solved tomorrow and well within the CWB Act itself,through Regulation 14(a), which applies equally to every bushel of wheat or barley to be exported from Canada and states:

14. The Corporation may grant a licence for the export, or for the sale or purchase for delivery outside Canada, of wheat, wheat products, barley or barley products if

(a) the export, sale or purchase of the grain or products for which the licence is sought does not adversely affect the marketing by the Corporation, in interprovincial or export trade, of grain grown in Canada;
14(a) allows the CWB to grant you a license.

14(a) applies to all organic exporters, but in Eastern Canada export licenses are granted but in the Prairies they are denied. This is how the CWB imposes a monopoly on western farmers.

The CWB already does this for: pedigreed seed grain; kamut, spelt and einkorn; eithiopian barley, all growers in the Creston-Wynndell region in British Columbia, and for feed mill companies under the Export Manufactured Feed Agreement (EMFA).


What Farmers Need to Know About Licensing
1. CWB LICENSES ARE NECESSARY
All applicants……flour millers, corporations, and farmers right across Canada, wanting to ship wheat/ barley or their products, interprovincially or for export, must have a CWB license. They don’t always have to fish it out of the glove compartment, but they are subject to presenting it.

Parliament says that the CWB is the only agent in Canada who can hand out these licenses, so everyone, whether you hate the CWB or love them, is usually forced to do business with the CWB if you deal in wheat or barley.

If you live outside the Designated Area, the CWB doles out licenses automatically. If you reach your hand out for a license in the Designated Area, the Board automatically slams the door on it. Is there any way to change things? What about behind closed doors negotiations? They do indeed, happen.

2. WHO PRESENTLY ENJOYS A LICENSING SIDE DEAL?
The big feed mills in Canada, often owned by the multinationals, quietly made a deal called the Export Manufactured Feed Agreement (EMFA) with the CWB. It allows the big feed mills to bypass the CWB entirely, and it costs the feed mills $0.00. The cost of administering this entire regulatory accommodation is being borne by ONLY prairie farmers, so let’s learn from the EMFA.

The CWB abandoned two CWB pillars in order to allow the Multinationals to bypass CWB marketing and CWB pooling, and the mills instead go directly out to the farms to buy wheat/barley. Informed Single-desk directors chose to discard these pillars.

You’ve seen the ads in all the papers…”Got heated canola, barley, wheat? Call Joe at 555-2355”. It’s happening under your very nose. The CWB don’t complain that the farmers are undercutting one another when “Joe” is grain-buying, and the CWB don’t argue that letting farmers market to Joe hurts the pools, either. If there was harm, the CWB shouldn’t have allowed it in the first place. Or if they had slipped up, the Board would again begin to buy feed grain from the farmer, sell it to the Multi’s and then pool the money. They don’t, so the CWB is obviously content. So are the feed mills.

3. ORGANICS NEEDS A LICENSING SIDE DEAL
How many times have you heard the CWB argue that if a small organic farmer wants to bypass Wheat Board pooling and marketing, it will hurt the pools so much the CWB can’t survive? Well the multinational do exactly that, yet the CWB claims it helps value-add and gets grain out of the country. Cheering them on!

Farmers/processors need to understand what options smarter players have latched onto, and do the same. First of all, we need to understand what we are asking for, and what we shouldn’t be asking for.

4. ORGANICS SHOULD AVOID LICENSING TRAPS
#1. Don’t ask for changes to the CWB Act. If farmers ask for anything involving a change in the CWB Act itself, you can bet it will not happen until the year 2075. Politicians are interested in getting votes, not meaningful changes

#2. Do ask “What changes can be made at the Board table itself?”

Single-desk Directors have proven time and time again that they willingly allow various applicants to bypass CWB marketing and pooling: Through a simple direction, (grant or deny) the CWB grants export licenses to the following:

(1) All Grain purchased from the CWB;
(2) All wheat or barley grown outside the Designated Area
(3) Pedigreed seed wheat and barley grown in the DA;
(4) The specialty wheat varieties, commonly known as spelt, kamut and einkorn,grown in the DA;
(5) Processed wheat and barley, grown in the DA and for feed purposes,under the Export Manufactured Feed Agreement;
(6) Prior to 1998, when the Creston-Wynndel region was still included in the DA, wheat and barley grown in that region were granted licences;
(7) Ethiopian barley;

All the above bypass CWB marketing and pooling. It is an established fact that Single desk Directors and Marketing Choice Directors vote exactly the same when they were presented with these “bypassers”.

#3. The No-Cost License quagmire
Watch out for this trap. It could mean different things! No-cost usually means that the farmer applies to the Board for the necessary CWB license but the Board refuses to grant the license, and tells the farmer to sell the grain to the CWB. The farmer sells the grain to the CWB to the Board for $4.00 and then buys it back for $4.00, thus NO COST. It’s a little enticing, isn’t it, and a lot of farmers chase this one, but don’t.

Several issues here:
a)Later on down the road, the Board could change its’ mind and decide to sell the grain back to the farmer on that specific day for say $6.00 per bushel. The farmer can lose his shirt on a big sale.
b)The farmer is still selling to the CWB, not directly to the buyer in Delaware, as an Ontario farmer would be.
c)The CWB will be demanding an organic admin fee for shuffling paper. No fee for the feed mills.
d)The farmer loses ownership of his grain to the CWB.
e) Not what Ontario enjoys.

5. ORGANICS NEEDS SAME LICENSE SIDE-DEAL AS ONTARIO
So what exactly what kind of license do we ask for? What will the Board try to talk us into? The CWB oftenannounces an array of licensing choice options for farmers, but the options the CWB describe,need to be thoroughly examined.

Start with the only good one:
Organics NEEDS No-Buyback Licenses…This is what Western farmers want and need. This is what Ontario gets. A No-Buyback License means that a farmer applies to the CWB to get the necessary license, and the CWB grants the license. The farmer does not pass through Board pooling or Board marketing. There is no administration fee, there is no fuss or bother. Lots of applicants get licensed this way. All of Ontario does.

a)The farmer retains ownership of his grain.
b)The licensing costs, legislatively, are to be paid for by the Federal Government.
c)There are no changes required to the Act to get a no-buyback license.

All the CWB needs to do is have the B of D pass a motion stating, “Grant export/interprovincial licenses to all certified organic applicants.” The same as they are already doing for the Export Manufactured Feed Agreement applicants!

6. DON’T BUY THE CWB’S PIG IN A POKE

The CWB will present organic farmers with this question: “What are your options for marketing organic wheat, durum and barley?”

Keep in mind that every option the CWB offers means selling to the CWB. Companies like Benson Quinn/ADM, Growers International/Paterson, Prairie Flour Mill and Saskatchewan Wheat Pool that have handling agreements with the CWB means that the grain you sell to them is sold to them as an agent of the CWB. Any sales to any other buyers means you go through the Producer Direct Sale (PDS) program which also means you are selling to the CWB. The CWB will dazzle you with the following options, but realize that every option MEANS SELLING TO THE CWB, and doing the buyback.

1.Early Payment Option (EPO)

2. Fixed Price Contract (FPC)

3. Basis Payment Contract (BPC)

4. Organic Spread Contract (OSC)
Every one only means more of the SAME! Doing the buyback/ selling to the CWB.


CONCLUSION
Organics has worked hard to build an industry and find markets. Western organic farmers deserve the same benefits that Eastern organics farmers are enjoying:

1.No-buyback licenses on demand
2.$0.00 CWB License administration fees

Parsley

[gerald.d]

Chuck
Are you an organic farmer?

[chuckChuck]

The CWB is a whipping boy come lightning rod for those with a certian kind of political axe to grind. Primarily those who favour big business taking over the trade. If you are in favour of that then say so but don't pretend there is going to be a CWB left after Strahl and Harper are done. Parsley has made a career out of bashing the Board at every opportunity but says very little about other marketing issues. The issues of the CWB's involvement is up to the CWB and elected farmer directors to decide.

[Fransisco]

How very elitist. Other's should decide the fate of what parsley grow? I think not. And that has nothing to do with big business and everything to do with parsley's business.

[chuckChuck]

Francisco, so it is okay to have the elites of Wall street,Bay street,CBOT, and Minneapolis and Kansas City make decisions that affect our future but it is not okay for farmer elected directors at the CWB to make decisions on our behalf? Beween the above choices which group do you think most closely represents farmers Francisco?

[chuckChuck]

Chaff and Parsley: The issue of the CWB and organic comes down to the issue of whether you support family farms, orderly marketing, pooling and the single desk. If you don’t support those policies then you will find fault with the CWB’s handling of organic grains. You either believe in pooling and sharing the highs and the lows of the market or you don’t. All the organic markets are in the premium conventional markets. There hasn’t been an organic sale of organic wheat to China, Brazil, or Indonesia. The primary organic markets are the EU,Canada, US and Japan. Essentially Parsley is asking for organic farmers to be allowed to cherry pick the best conventional market prices without going through the Board’s pool account.
Further, the majority of the critics of the CWB don’t support orderly marketing and are generally pursuing their own self interest by saying they should decide how and when they market their wheat and it doesn’t matter what happens to the other guy. Everyone for themselves, dog eat dog or however you want to put it. The end result is that farms will continue to grow bigger and small family farms will become a thing of the past. As I said before, there is no economic reason why we need 50,000 farmers when a handfull of large farm corporations can do the job. If you support a market economy where there are no restrictions like the CWB then we should also get rid of the majority of the family farms, communities and the subsidies that keep them going.

[Fransisco]

Chuck that is a false choice.

The people you mention do not make decisions on my behalf. And they treat my decisions with respect.

The CWB directors do not treat me, my property, or my decisions with respect or even acknowledge that they are mine in the first place. The fact that they are elected by my neighbors makes absolutely no difference in any of this.

But since you yourself are such a big fan of deciding things by elections you must be really upset by the board of directors refusal to except the outcome of the barley plebiscite. And their refusal to heed the wishes of the majority.

[Fransisco]

And it is spelt 'between' not 'beween'.

[Fransisco]

See also[URL=" http://agriville.com/cgi-bin/forums/viewThread.cgi?1176312172"] this.[/URL]