SASKATOON – The Canadian Wheat Board wants grain and wants it now.
There’s space in country elevators, there’s strong demand in the international marketplace and there’s lots of transportation available.
And with freight rates about to get a lot higher, the board wants to load as much as possible on rail cars before Aug. 1.
“To the extent that it’s possible to do, we’ll try to move it off the farms and out of country elevators by July 31,” said wheat board commissioner Ken Beswick. “We can’t do it all, but we’ll try.”
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Farmers who deliver grain into this year’s account before the end of the crop year will pay the 1994-95 freight rate, and the sooner that grain is delivered, the better.
If it’s still in the elevator come Aug. 1, it will be shipped out at the much higher 1995-96 freight rate. The additional freight bill will be paid out of this year’s pool accounts, thus reducing net returns for all farmers.
Market analyst Charlie Pearson of United Grain Growers is encouraging farmers to get board grain into the system as quickly as possible so it can be shipped to export position at the lower rate.
“If you deliver July 31, you won’t pay the higher rate as an individual, but the whole pool will suffer as a result,” he said. “It’s probably not that much, but every 50 cents or a dollar is important.”
Even farmers who decide to price their grain next year should at least deliver it now on a storage ticket, so the board can move the grain into export position, he added.
Reasons to do it now
Beswick acknowledged that the board’s own projections of higher prices in 1995-96 may tempt some farmers to price their grain next year, but he cautioned against it, saying there are lots of reasons to deliver now.
“They don’t take the transportation hit, they get their bins cleaned out and they get their money in their hands today,” he said, adding a lot can happen to change the 1995-96 price outlook.
CWB advisory committee member Terry Hanson of Fillmore, Sask., said farmers considering holding grain over are making a mistake. “I don’t think they’ve sat down and thought through the freight rate impact.”
Board officials say there are still additional sales to be made depending on how much grain comes in over the next couple of weeks.
One place where the lack of grain has shown up has been Thunder Bay. Stocks are low and vessels have had to wait to pick up grain, which hasn’t happened much in recent years. Tony Kaplanis, port co-ordinator for the Grain Transportation Agency, said it’s a nice change to have sales outstripping supplies.
