Agricore United and James Richardson International Limited announced Wednesday that they have agreed to combine to create Canada’s largest grain company and a leading global Canadian agri-business.
Larry Weber;
Yesterday was a defining moment in the Canadian grain business. And it wasn’t the proposed JRI takeover of Agricore United was unexpected, you knew that they would be courting someone other than the [Saskatchewan Wheat Pool]. For me it was there was one of these deals is going to go through and change the face of the industry again. United Grain Growers, Manitoba Pool Elevators and Alberta Pool, already footnotes in the grain handling industry and relished to portrait paintings with elevators in the background, will now lose any semblance of a farmer run corporation. I don’t know if Mac Runciman is buried deep enough not to choke someone.
If the new corporation, Richardson Agricore comes to fruition, the probability of any farmers on the Board of Directors is not that high – and there won’t be delegate elections to ensure that happens. Are any of the deals good for farmers? Here are your choices: An arranged marriage or a shotgun wedding. You pick……..Times up. Rationalization was going to occur regardless – it is a fact of business.
What the media is not reporting: The Richardson family’s roots are very deep in Winnipeg grain industry. Walk into the Grain Exchange building and you will see someone from the Richardson family on almost all of the archived pictures. Hartley Richardson is Winnipeg’s biggest promoter. If the SWP bid came to fruition, there was a good chance that the power base of the Winnipeg grain industry would start to erode.
This new bid will solidify Winnipeg as the center of the grain industry in Canada forever. Deep down, I’m sure Hartley knew this and was part of the business decision. For a family that is intensely private – this was a huge step and not made lightly. Hayward will be looking for work if this deal flies. There is an opening at the CWB for a permanent CEO.
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Larry. You made some good points, but in the ‘world of the grain trade’, the Richardsons, UGG, Pools, do not really amount to a hill of beans. Just collection points for farmer deliveries.
‘The Mechants of Grain’ by Dan Morgan, Penguin Books, written in 1980 revealed the inner workings that effect ALL the world’s farmer’s “marketing”. It was true 26 years ago and IMO is more true today.
The Majors (Cargil, Continental, Bunge, Glenas, and even the remnants of Cook are the ‘Big Boys’ that rule. They have the resources, the know-how, the intelligence, and are willing to take the risk that is required to put together muliti-million $$ deals under sometimes wierd conditions.
I lent a friend the book in the earliy 80s and he went on to be a very sucessful Canadian grain merchant in his own right. He told me he read the book three times in a row.
When talking of the grain trade he would often say “it doesn’t matter if you are right and 80% of the others are wrong, you can still get cleaned”. Case in point; the majors can corner/run the market even by not using it.
And to think the flakes at MDA had the insight to “teach” farmers how they could “trade” futures to their advantage. What a joke.
just one more larger company to steal from the farmer….As far as I’m concerned they’re all a bunch of crooked jerks and that includes the CWB and the power hungry politicians that support it’s legalized theft of western grain…in the end we farmers get screwed by all of them
Valster;No we dont get screwed by all of them.We chose to grow grain thousands of miles from the people that buy it from us.We ask people to sell it for us and they want a fee for doing it and a fee for transporting it.We could raise buffalo like the indians did but they didnt have a market for them either.When the whites came,they were able to sell them hides as the buffalo were to expensive to ship live from these great plains and there was no method of transportation except the rivers so they sold hides.We were in the same position as Australia,they couldnt sell their meat till someone invented mechanical freezing.When that happened,the west was settled to supply wheat to feed the factory workers meat sandwiches in ENGLAND.THats why our forfathers came to Canada.That B.S. has gone on long enough.We have to develope something that isnt ate up with frieght charges.
something that isn’t ate up by freight charges….hmmm…..the railroads are in on it too!…explain why it’s cheaper to ship an automobile from Windsor to Vancouver than it is from Windsor to Regina….or why preferential rates are given to grain elevators that can load 100 railcars at a time yet the farmer pays the full rate on those cars…and who pockets the difference???…..I used to work for a grain company and I stand by my first post!
What’s wrong with Wheat farmers recognizing the times that supplying wheat for just human consumption is what is holding our prairie farmer from his future in supplying ethanol fuel, a clean burning alternative fuel made from grain products just like corn. Perhaps the rate of combustion is different, but by the fact that renewable fuel resources has been recognized by the Conservative government, and is looking for just such a consortium to lobby the government for eco-renewable grants, and developemnt for production and exploration, and such as perhaps just what the Dr. ordered to put the the Wheat produsers in the drivers seat at last?
I hope you’re right Hammer, all of us do!… but Governments must be prepared to match the USA in development incentives or else we’ll miss the boat on this one too….another major concern is the economics of plant based energy is predicated on one thing….cheap grain!….it will be interesting to see who has the most power to extract the “cheap grain” from farmers….the ethenol and biodiesel industry or the bleeding hearts who think it is their divine priviledge to have cheap food forever while farmers starve to death
valster;It sounds like you still work for a grain company if you think that we should grow a commodity,ship it half way around the world and sell it to someone poorer than we are.Those days hopefully are coming to an end.
Looks like the farmers are bleating once again. Can’t they see that grain prices have risen sharply, land prices are up over 20% in one year in Sask. Farming is the place to be going forward. Buy shares in SWP
By the way,we can make money on high yielding feed wheat if the only frieght charges are to the plant.Thats whats wrong with the malting barley market,the freight to the on shore and off shore processors are pooled therefore a local farmer to a malster has no advantage over one 500 miles away and thats B.S.
wrong on all counts spike….just don’t like being screwed by people who profess to be “serving my needs”…and that goes for the grain industry including the CWB, the railways, the Gov’t and whoever is lined up to the trough at my expense…..I’ll gladly pay my fair share but not to gougers and freeloaders….and those starving poor people halfway around the world……I would donate product to help them …you figure out how to get it to the right people!!
tranio….got just the deal for you….a farm….price is up 20%……still 20% less than it was in 1980….a few other things you should know…fertilizer…up 60%….fuel…up 20%…..chemicals up 10%…..Oh and you’ll need some equipment….combine…400,000.00…..tractor…200,000.00….seeder….150,000.00…..sprayer….200,000.00….and I’ll even throw in my SWP shares!!!
Right on about the malt barley freight Spike….same thing for canola crushing plants….B.S……oh and the fact that we can’t get a pasta plant going in the heart of durum country….a great big hug to the good old CWB FOR THAT…
I wonder what the guy that put Agricore together thinks about all this? Ted A, are you out there? An old pal.
“something that isnt ate up with frieght charges.”
Here’s your problem then… “location” Sask is 1 million people spread over several million square kilometers…
We are not a province we are a small city, far too spread out into several very small islands.
If you don’t want to ship your product you have 2 choices. Move, or grow the province.
Do one or the other, or you will always be a primary producer with an economy built on supplying the needs of others.