Farmers who sell wheat, durum and barley through the CWB can now make deliveries to any grain elevator on the Prairies.
CWB president Ian White confirmed Aug. 7 that the voluntary wheat board has reached commercial grain handling agreements with 10 more companies, including Paterson Grain, Parrish & Heimbecker, Weyburn Inland Terminal, Prairie West Terminal, Providence Grain Group, Great Sandhills Terminal, North West Terminal, Lethbridge Inland Terminal, Westlock Terminal and Great Northern Grain.
The wheat board has also negotiated access to port facilities owned by Alliance Grain Terminal in Vancouver. Alliance is controlled by six grain handling companies: Paterson, P & H, Prairie West Terminal, Weyburn Inland Terminal, Great Sandhills Terminal and North West Terminal.
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“We now have the necessary business arrangements in place to operate in the new grain-marketing environment,” said White.
A complete list of all delivery points available to CWB customers can be viewed on CWB’s website at www.cwb.ca/deliverylocations.
Earlier this month, the CWB ann-ounced similar agreements with Louis Dreyfus Canada and Richardson International.
Jean Marc Ruest, vice-president of corporate affairs with Richardson, said the agreement to handle CWB grain will benefit Richardson and its customers.
“We’re in the business of handling grain and we want to handle as much grain as possible, so reaching a commercial agreement with anybody who is in a position to move important volumes of grain through our network is something that is of interest to us,” Ruest said.
“We expect that there are going to be a number of our farm customers that are going to be interested in using the tools that can be offered to them by the CWB.”
Andrew Paterson, president of Paterson GlobalFoods, said his company’s agreement gives Paterson’s customers more flexibility in marketing their crops.
“It means that we will be able to offer wheat board deferred pool pricing at all of our locations in Western Canada, giving producers the maximum amount of choice possible in marketing their grain,” Paterson said.
“It’s up to the producers now to decide how successful either … (pool) is and that’s why we wanted as many options as possible for our customers.”
CWB has no grain handling facilities and was banking on its ability to negotiate commercial agreements with private sector grain companies.
Paterson said strong cash markets for wheat and barley are likely to affect the amount of grain committed to CWB pools.
