I’ll start comparing North Dakota wheat daily for 09/10 as some of you have requested it. After viewing the durum price, I’m sure glad that Canada is the largest durum exporter in the world and exercises market power over those horrible multi-national grain companies who dare bid the market price down to a $3.28 a bushel difference in SK.
(click for full size)
Soo…please tell prarie farmers, once again, how much better off they make the head haunchos in the CWB and Eastern Canadians? Posting this should be like rubbing salt into a wound.
A catalogue has arrived from a big western auction firm and in it are some massive cultivators. Cultivators with evil looking teeth.
If this CWB crap was happening to us we’d be ripping up the roads!
The CWB: Another piece of government that needs to be eliminated. It’s been a theme of late.
CWB CBC all crimes again Canada
Those SOB’s in the CWB forced me to become a seed grower for which I am eternaly grateful.Does that make me a CWB supporter? By some peoples logic it probably does.
Farmers sure must be a dumb and sorry lot for always voting to keep single desk selling.
Farmers sure must be a dumb and sorry lot for always voting to keep single desk selling.
Yeah, but given the horror fantasies they get fed all the time from the CWB, it’s amazing that open market voters gain any votes at all.
Plus, it doesn’t matter if they voted 99% in favour — you don’t have the option of joining or leaving. No one should be forced to sell their goods at the point of a gun.
philboy;Tell us the reasons that single desk selling is better but just from your perspective as a farmer.
I have always wondered why those western farmers do not get down on their knees and thank the CWB for ensuring year after year by keeping selling prices lower than what could be acheived on the open market, has ensured that western farmers are the leanest, most efficient and technologically advanced in the western hemisphere. No slackers out there. CWB – bringing out the best in western farmers.
(Sarcasm now off)
Mr. Weber, who by profession is a commodities broker, has a vested interest in seeing the CWB gone. However, Mr. Weber does not answer a simple question and that is why is it when left up to the voting farmers are CWB candidates who support single desk marketing (i.e. CWB) more often elected than those who oppose it. I know many farmers who farm thousands of acres who tenaciously support the CWB and vote for candidates of the same.
“Farmers sure must be a dumb and sorry lot for always voting to keep single desk selling.”
Who voted for a preferential ballot system?
If it works so good for farmers – why not for Members of Parliament – we could start with Regina Wascana seeing it was REG’s brainchild.
This is not about votes – it is about money and the forced contributions of western Canadian farmer’s equity to third world countries. A straight equity transfer from the gift that keeps on giving.
It is a rendition of Tim’s Camp Day with all profit going to charity – 365 days a year.
Since you missed it the first time – here you go again….
Mr. Weber and other commodity brokers can easily find a home for individual cargo lots”
Not me – havent brokered grain since 2005 – tired of the left wing whacks suggesting change I was promoting was strictly self-servicing.
Snag:
You have no idea how much this institution is costing you, do you?
Here is a taste from an email I sent to Ritz 10 days ago:
From: Larry Weber [mailto:larry@webercommodities.com]
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 12:09 PM
To: Gerry.Ritz2@agr.gc.ca‘
Subject: so if CWB can advise anyone who has a $5500 Reuters terminal what they are doing – why cant they tell farmers?
****ing board – everyday I need to pop a nitro because they are so inept – every friggin day – millions and millions of our farmers equity GIVEN away to foreign countries – when does it stop??????????????????????????
Keep farmers in the dark but tell the trade everything – pathetic –
controlled by left wing whack farmers s/b the motto
what are the parameters for provincial trade barriers to make this happen?
12:23 22May09 RTRS-CANADA WHEAT BOARD CEO SAYS SOLD 150,000 TONNES OF SPRING WHEAT TO IRAQ LAST WEEK
12:24 22May09 RTRS-CANADA WHEAT BOARD CEO SAYS WOULD SUPPORT GM WHEAT IF EXPORT MARKETS WOULD ACCEPT
12:24 22May09 RTRS-CANADA WHEAT BOARD CEO SAYS WHEAT PLANTINGS LIKELY “SLIGHTLY LOWER” THAN STATSCAN ESTIMATE OF 25.2 MLN ACRES
12:24 22May09 RTRS-CANADA WHEAT BOARD CEO SAYS WILL ACCEPT ALL WHEAT PRODUCED THIS YEAR, WITH SMALL CARRYOUT
12:26 22May09 RTRS-CANADA WHEAT BOARD CEO SAYS WHEAT PRICES GOOD BUT WON’T LIKELY REACH RECORD HIGHS THIS YEAR
12:40 22May09 RTRS-Canada sells 150,000 tonnes wheat to Iraq -CWB
SASKATOON, Saskatchewan, May 22 (Reuters) – The Canadian Wheat Board sold 150,000 tonnes of spring wheat to Iraq last week, the CWB’s president and chief executive said on Friday.
“That’s not unusual. Iraq will generally purchase when they go to tender in the range of 100,000 to 300,000 tonnes,” Ian White said in an interview with Reuters. “Sales to Iraq in this last 12 months have been quite good.”
White also said Canadian wheat and barley exports in general are in line with expectations and that he expects “minimal” carryover into next year.
He predicts Canadian farmers will plant a “slightly lower” all-wheat acreage than the estimate of 25.2 million acres given by Statistics Canada earlier this spring.
____________________________________________
The only premium the CWB extracts is the one the take from farmer’s cheques to pay themselves bonuses.
Posted by: Larry Weber | June 1, 2009 12:10 AM
The wheat board is in place strictly to bank roll the longshoreman unions on the left coast and the St Lawrence seaway.
I remember many times having to go without new stuff because of the strikes that conveniently took place during harvest.
The wheat board had no problem taking the farmer’s money to pay the port detentions, demurrage and every other delay fee as well as the union’s new high price contract.
CWB is the best thing that has happened to farmers. They don’t get the highest price but that is a small premium to ALWAYS get a very good price and never suffer a loss.
CWB is the best thing that has happened to farmers. They don’t get the highest price but that is a small premium to ALWAYS get a very good price and never suffer a loss.
CWB is the best thing that has happened to farmers. They don’t get the highest price but that is a small premium to ALWAYS get a very good price and never suffer a loss.
Posted by: aa at June 3, 2009 10:33 PM
Don’t know what your definition is for a very good price but I for one know many western farmers that went belly up, hard to do never suffering a lose.
Believe it or not farmers have good yrs and bad yrs, what price do you put on a non existent harvest? They need top dollar to make it through the bad yrs and all they want is the right to sell their product to the highest bidder like every other business does, and farming is a business not a freakin charity.
philboy;Tell us the reasons that single desk selling is better but just from your perspective as a farmer.
I don’t know that it is better, spike, but it seems to me that when it comes to electing CWB directors,
the vote is for the pro CWB side. Why do so many vote against their own economic interests, if the Penners and Webers of this world are correct? You’d have to be an idiot to do so.
If the majority of western farmers wanted the CWB gone, it would disappear tomorrow.
On any given day you can check n. dakota grain prices and you will find flax, canola, peas etc. pretty well the same price as in canada.
Wheat and barley however are always higher in n. dakota.
Why is that??
answer: the cwb has to steal their share first….
The best thing that could happen to the cwb is to be taken out behind the barn and plugged!!
That would be the best thing for my farm!
at the very least, get it to out of my pocket!
And i promise, i will never ask to be let back in!
EVER!!
The director votes are rigged. Do you really think the Board would design and run a vote they couldn’t win? They hold all the cards, they decide who votes, they decide which votes count, they decide who can break the rules and who can’t. It’s a suckers game.
Besides which the final say is still Ottawa’s, you could have 100% of the farmers vote to end the monopoly and the politicos we’ve got today would still say ‘no’.
I’m not a farmer but the question I have is why don’t the farmers that want to end the monopoly ship their grain by the carload to Ont. Let farmers there sell on the open market. I know they need quotas here but do they have quotas in the East? If enough grain went through would it not make a point? I know it wouldn’t do Larry any good in the short term but it might be enough to make the CWB choke.
“I don’t know that it is better, spike, but it seems to me that when it comes to electing CWB directors,
the vote is for the pro CWB side. Why do so many vote against their own economic interests, if the Penners and Webers of this world are correct? You’d have to be an idiot to do so.
If the majority of western farmers wanted the CWB gone, it would disappear tomorrow.”
Posted by: philboy at June 3, 2009 11:13 PM
That comment made me wonder why these same farmers ALWAYS vote for the CPC every election, without fail, when Harper and the Conservatives make it clear they don’t like the CWB and want to give farmer’s the right to choose. (And I, for one, support a farmer’s right to choose.)
The following comment is the only possible answer as to why farmers would vote FOR the CWB candidates during CWB election and then vote FOR the pro-choice
candidates at every single Federal and Provincial election:
“The director votes are rigged. Do you really think the Board would design and run a vote they couldn’t win? They hold all the cards, they decide who votes, they decide which votes count, they decide who can break the rules and who can’t. It’s a suckers game.
Besides which the final say is still Ottawa’s, you could have 100% of the farmers vote to end the monopoly and the politicos we’ve got today would still say ‘no’.”
Posted by: Farmer Joe at June 3, 2009 11:52 PM
Further to Trent’s comments. Why is it that when these same farmers are asked the same clear questions about what they want and answer them the same way “choice” for the last ten years director elections supposedly say otherwise?
Again, because the elections are rigged.
http://rolfpennerforcwb.com/2008/10/22/ten-year-cwb-survey-trend-on-wheat-marketing/
“da solution is dat simple, meg all whit growers includink does in quebec to belong to da canajun whit bort.” Borat Dion. 54 Stepaside Manor .PQ.
philboy; Is your answer from your perspective as a farmer ? And no, the CWB is a govt agency and govt agencies have a habit of not disappearing despite the wishes of the people.If some farmers want the board,well,let them.If some farmers want out of the board why not let them ? We should be at least be free to chose.I for one,as a seed grower,was able to opt out of the board and sell my production without quotas and received all my returns at my farm gate.If I hadnt done that I would be doing something else now.If you want to see the real results of the CWB,track the exodus of famers from the land after the introduction of the CWB.
“Single desk selling” is an anti-concept, just like “two-tier health care”, “public property” and the usual long list. Its purpose is to obscure the fact that the property rights of farmers are being violated.
philboy: “If the majority of western farmers wanted the CWB gone, it would disappear tomorrow”
It shouldn’t matter what the “majority” wants. It’s about what the individual wants to do with his own property.
We could “vote” here to redistribute the contents of philboy’s and T’s bank accounts to the rest of us. But that wouldn’t make it right either, even though the “majority” might go for it.
“CWB: Protecting Prairie Farmers From American-Style Profit”
LOL
An amusing jaded parody of the mawkish public sector delusion that property rights, free speech, free association and trade and private profit motive are alien concepts.
Seems Blackstone is not required reading in Kanada’s bureaucractic culture.
Why does Ontario have higher prices?
“All your grains are belong to me.”
The problem with letting the pro-CWB farmers to stay in and letting the rest to opt out, from CWB perspective, would lower the board’s purchasing power. Essentially if half the farmers left, the board would become small fish on the market. This is why the board will never let it become opt in system. It has to be done with completely.
Excellent work Larry.
Thanx.
BTW, Ralph Goodale is on the public record as stating that even though a majority of farmers might vote to do away with the CWB when he was in office, he still would not get rid of it.
I think that we can safely assume that the present CPC is thinking the same way because it sure takes a BIG man to GIVE UP POWER over people.
Proof once again that the CWB is 90% power politics and 10% grain marketing.
I have a stupid question that maybe one of our trader friends or our friends from south of the border can answer for me.
$4.30 net to farmer from the CWB. That is after transportation etc. (complete with the railway surcharge to me for the “green fuel tax” in BC… I do love how the polluters pay the tax without passing it on to their customers btw)
$7.50 in ND tho…. that is net to farmer. How are their freight/cleaning/elevation etc charged? Do the companies eat them and price them into $9 wheat and come up with $7.50?? Or is that stuff charged to producers after the gross is paid?
I have a stupid question that maybe one of our trader friends or our friends from south of the border can answer for me.
$4.30 net to farmer from the CWB. That is after transportation etc. (complete with the railway surcharge to me for the “green fuel tax” in BC… I do love how the polluters pay the tax without passing it on to their customers btw)
$7.50 in ND tho…. that is net to farmer. How are their freight/cleaning/elevation etc charged? Do the companies eat them and price them into $9 wheat and come up with $7.50?? Or is that stuff charged to producers after the gross is paid?
I have a stupid question that maybe one of our trader friends or our friends from south of the border can answer for me.
$4.30 net to farmer from the CWB. That is after transportation etc. (complete with the railway surcharge to me for the “green fuel tax” in BC… I do love how the polluters pay the tax without passing it on to their customers btw)
$7.50 in ND tho…. that is net to farmer. How are their freight/cleaning/elevation etc charged? Do the companies eat them and price them into $9 wheat and come up with $7.50?? Or is that stuff charged to producers after the gross is paid?
I have a stupid question that maybe one of our trader friends or our friends from south of the border can answer for me.
$4.30 net to farmer from the CWB. That is after transportation etc. (complete with the railway surcharge to me for the “green fuel tax” in BC… I do love how the polluters pay the tax without passing it on to their customers btw)
$7.50 in ND tho…. that is net to farmer. How are their freight/cleaning/elevation etc charged? Do the companies eat them and price them into $9 wheat and come up with $7.50?? Or is that stuff charged to producers after the gross is paid?
Hi,
Commodities brokers make me laugh. Same guys telling everyone to hold onto their canola because it’s going to hit $20/bushel, then it tanks. Same guys telling everyone a $40/under basis is a GOOD deal. Now basis levels are at $11/under.
The price of wheat is pretty close when you don’t factor in deductions. If you have a problem with the price talk to your RR – it’s charging you $42/mt to ship it. That’s where the huge deductions come from. If you take $1.75/bushel as a deduction (freight, elevation, what not) – the price of wheat @ $6.05 is actually $7.80 open market. Considering that most farmer won’t haul unless there’s a few dollars w/trucking incentive it’s really pretty close.
People, it’s NOT the CWB thats hammering you, it’s the RailRoad companies.