The consensus in the grain industry is that canola moves more efficiently through the marketing pipeline than wheat.
However, experts at the recent Fields on Wheels conference in Winnipeg weren’t sure how much more efficient wheat shipments will be without the Canadian Wheat Board marketing monopoly.
“I’m not sure that wheat will ever be as efficient on your measurements, your metrics, as canola precisely because of the grade pattern,” said University of Manitoba Transport Institute analyst Paul Earl.
“Wheat is not just wheat. Canola, more or less, is just canola.”
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He was referring to the many segregations of wheat based on grade, protein and type versus canola, which has fewer grades.
Earl was reacting to graphics and statistics showing that canola flows through the transportation system almost in a “just-in-time” manner, with comparatively little in storage within the system compared to the amount of the crop in motion. Wheat, on the other hand, tends to have heavy stocks along the chain.
However, Jean-Marc Ruest of Richardson International, who provided the graphics, said he had no doubt that board grains would move more efficiently once the wheat board’s monopoly is gone.
He said the board system works on a production-push model, in which whatever is produced is pushed through the system toward port, even if buyers have not yet been found for the product.
Without the wheat board, companies would move to a demand-pull model, in which grain would flow into the system only when sales had been made and ships were on the way.
“If we were handling the pipeline from start to finish, and knew what was required to be loaded on board vessels … we, I firmly believe, would do a better job at ensuring that that specific quality, quantity and variety of grain was what was being sent to Vancouver, versus sending it all to Vancouver or Thunder Bay in all those different segregations, and then figuring out what needs to go on what vessel,” said Ruest.
Earl said he expects to see two opposing trends affecting the more-complicated logistics system for wheat shipments.
There will likely be fewer segregations of wheat qualities and types without the bureaucratic control of the wheat board, but some buyers will demand specific quality and class characteristics, so market fragmentation will also occur.
Ruest said it is unclear whether all the present wheat divisions will survive after the end of the board system.
“Are we going to have all these segregations, all these different varietal considerations, etc.,” he said.
“It will be very interesting to watch to see whether wheat, barley continue to be so much more complicated to handle and store than what we see on the non-board side.”
A company that recycles 4.5 million pounds of plastic a year from empty farm pesticide containers doesn’t believe it has gone far enough.
Clean Farms Inc.’s new recycling awareness campaign provides information to farmers and commercial pesticide dealers about the environmental benefits of recycling.
General manager Barry Friesen said he believes farmers need to be aware that recycling plays a significant role in helping to protect the environment.
He said the company wants to increase its recovery rate on pesticide containers in commercial use to 80 percent from 64 percent.
The empty pesticide container recycling program varies between provinces.
Saskatchewan farmers take empty containers to farm pesticide dealers for collection, while in other provinces they go to municipal collection depots.
Clean Farms collects the containers from drop-off sites and shreds the plastic for collection by recycling companies.
Friesen said there’s a limit to what the recycled material can be used for because the containers used to contain pesticides.
Farm drainage tiles are the main product, but the plastic is also used in the manufacture of industrial garbage cans.
The program collects pesticide containers smaller than 23 litres.
Farmers, horticultural operators and golf course operators can deliver the empty containers to more than 1,150 recycling pick-up sites. The program had returned 83 million empty crop protection product containers for recycling as of 2009.
Friesen believes the company’s recycling program is one of the most successful voluntary waste disposal programs in Canada. He said Clean Farms is looking beyond pesticide container recycling to other plastic products, such as grain bag collection.
Clean Farms received $25,000 from the Canadian and Manitoba governments in January to examine the best ways to collect and manage agricultural waste generated on farms. The empty pesticides container recycling program has been in operation since 1989.
