2 row malting barley is a commodity that brewers fear will be in short supply ...it has already increased in price at the end user ...I see this costs are certainly not front loaded from the Canadian producer demanding/getting more for his barley.

C'mon Kate, the Canadian and US prices ARE the same. You're just showing the price AFTER the Libranos have taken thier 'commission'.

Open the books!

"Many board supporters don’t like spot price comparisons with the pool price, they feel that it is not a fair comparison..."

Wrong. It's called the Law of One Price. If there were a free market, you wouldn't be able to arb the hell out of these prices.

As much as I dislike the French, at least their farmers would be blockading roads and protesting this injustice. Being raised on the the farm this is nothing new, but with most farmers, the next generation has merely inherited the farm, not the balls that started the operation. The younger generation while being given the operation have never had to fight for anything and know nothing of phoning up an M.P. and raising hell to scrap this communist organization the wheat board. As long as they are not late for curling and golf there is no worries to most of them, they must help themselves like file a human rights complaint! Yes it is a violation of your human rights in Canada, when an Ontario or Quebec farmer can sell his grain wherever, and you prarie farmers must sell to the Wheat Board, think about it. If this does not make you mad enough, think of all the Liberals that have raked billions off of your hard work for the last 75 years. Yes this is another system that facillitates money being skimmed off the top by the top skimmers, Liberals and their freinds!

no wonder Steffi refuses to impose such a wonderful system on the farmers of Ontario and Quebec.

It makes it so much easier for them to compete when the law kills off western agricultural competition.

Bartinsky - Some of us are fighting like mad. If the Liberals would win any upcoming election it would be devastating for me. We need a conservetive majority. Its hard to beleive that Liberals and NDPers have fought for and won the right of people of the same sex to marry each other. They have fought for and won the right for people to murder their unborn children yet they continue to supress the rights of western Canadian Farmers with their CWB. As far as malt barley is concerned, I will not grow it till the CWB has nothing to do with it anymore.

I live in Ontario but hat doesn't mean I haven't followed the communist Wheat Board issue for years.

Google the name Andy McMechan
folks.

"Andy McMechan, the Manitoba farmer who recently spent five months in jail for breach of bail
conditions related to offences under the Customs Act for exporting grain without a Canadian Wheat Board permit."

Just a bit off topic except for mentioning another communistic system "Canadian One tier Health system."

Only in Cuba North Korea and Canada.

Thanks for posting this Kate. I thought of an alternate title after I had posted it myself, "An Equal Sharing of Misery".

A big hat-tip also goes to John De Pape who put all the data together to come up with this chart.

It stands to reason that if the CWB really was benefitting western growers, and eastern growers were prevented from participating, it would be all over the media. They's be up in arms over the discriminatory treatment. As is is now, the feed back from eastern growers is.... (crickets)

Unfortunatly this cannot be a human rights issue since property rights are not part of our constitution. I am also mad and have done everyting possible to remove the CWB from confiscating producers grain, I grow everything else I can not under the board but I still have to grow wheat and barley for proper crop rotation. For all the years we have been farming we havent had a permit book nor sold grain through the board. Because of the CWB my prices are still and always be lower than the rest of the worlds prices.

Folks the big question is not why Canadian farmers are getting less than US produces...the question is why this is happening in a high demand low supply 2 row malting barley market...Canadian end users are paying the same increased prices for 2 row malted barley as US end users are( allegedly because malters are paying more for the barley as it is in shorter supply this year)...who is pocketing the seller's market gap?

There is obviously a skim in the supply chain between producer and end user.

The main reason our farmers arent blockading roads is that they are so used to being bailed out by our government when crops fail or prices are crappy they are all to happy to accept these loses because there is no longer any serious risks in their business.

There are farmers that genuinely believe that the CWB protects their intrests.These same farmers are'nt aware that the frieght to Van.or the east coast is deducted from the price of barley and wheat even tho the grain may be picked up at the elevator or delivered to a malster.Both the railways and the grain companys have profited greatly from the CWB.These farmers also think that we should be like,as in health care, Cuba and North Korea as the bad Americans are making MONEY off their labours.

In the Jan.31 edition of the Western Producer the article states that "the CWB wants to pay farmers to store high quality wheat so that some customers will have access to it if the quality of the 2008 crop is of a low quality"so stated Greg Arason CEO of the CWB.In other words he wants Western Canadian farmers to miss out on the highest prices EVER for wheat so some customers will have a guaranteed supply.If these customers have these concerns then THEY should BUY the wheat and STORE it themselves.Let them build the storage.One wonders how many times that this has happened in the past.When a CEO of the CWB wants this then I think that those countries should pay his salary because he sure as Hell is'nt representing the western farmer.PROVE to us that the CWB gets the HIGHEST PRICE,SELL THE DAMN STUFF!

Adrian Smits - You have no clue what you're talking about.

If 'property rights' are not part of our Constitution, where do the wives get 'property rights' from in divorce cases?

Or do they only get fake property rights?

Those independent simpleton dirt farmers couldn't possibly be getting consistently better prices than the experts using the collective marketing power of all western Canadian producers! I think that the CWB should demand a recount (sarcasm off).

You are getting closer to actual data that you can use to convince me....

But unfortunately you are still confusing Daily price potential (spot price) and actual sales (The CWB side... or what the American farmer actually sells it for.)

All you are showing in the american numbersAis what people could have gotten on an average. Not what they did get.

It doesn't compare.

Likewise in the first post WLM is confusing the price of separate commodities: Barley and Beer.

While they affect each other they are still separate. There is still only 1-3cents of barley in each bottle of beer (depending on whose numbers you believe.) Compare that to $3.75 a bottle in the bar or around $2 in a bottle by the case in a LB.

The price of Barley doubled. If the price of a 24 pack goes up more than 50 cents (2 c a bottle)... its more than the barley increase.

But it's ok. Blame it on us farmers for not producing enough.

"Barcs: All you are showing in the american numbersAis what people could have gotten on an average. Not what they did get."

The problem with your point is the fact that the CWB IS averaging EVERYONE'S sales for the year into their Pooled Return Outlook price - the price that is getting compared to here. In order to compare apples to apples, an analyst would have no choice but to average the spot price for the entire year to make a comparison. Granted, this should be a weighted average based on sales volumes, but regardless, being able to compare the spot price in the US or Ontario to the PRO on any given day should be a direct comparison.

You cannot both agree and disagree with the same statement Andrew.

You can argue that the earnings Potential is skewed toward the states based on those numbers.

But you cannot even take weighted averages from the American market because of all the speculators within it.

You need to find all the buyers (or sellers) and obtain their information and get the records of ACTUAL TRANSACTIONS.

The data presented doesn't. Nor will it ever. A business will never (and should not be required to) give up customer lists and sales information to its competitors willingly.

But without that information the data cannot be compared "apples to apples"

For example:

The price of Minneapolis wheat (the spot price the CWB bases Hard REd spring wheat prices on) is going to open monday morning up 60 cents at just over $16.

Lots of potential earnings.

Find me a dozen or so American farmers who didn't pull the trigger and sell months ago at $10-12. (double what the price usually is.)

Not gonna be easy is it?

That's the difference you and I are talking about.