CWB ownership | FNA says it needs farmers to commit by Oct. 20
PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Man. — They know it’s dreadful timing and seems like a long shot, but organizers of Farmers of North America’s bid for CWB say their plan is realistic.
However, they said farmers need to get behind it now, within days, or the opportunity for a new generation of farmer grain company ownership will disappear.
“By Oct. 20 we need to know,” Bob Friesen, FNA’s Ottawa-based representative, said at a sparsely attended meeting with farmers in Portage La Prairie Oct. 8.
“We’re scrambling under the time line that we have created.”
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FNA is attempting to raise pledges from farmers to launch an official bid for CWB, which the federal government must privatize by 2017.
Friesen said FNA believes CWB is likely to be sold long before then, so a farmer-funded bid like the one it’s proposing can’t wait until winter, when farmers have time to consider issues like this.
Friesen said it might be a last opportunity for farmers to get a stake in the prairie grain handling system.
“If farmers don’t get it, someone else will,” he said.
“It could be, who knows? It could be ADM. It could be Bunge. It could be a Cargill. It could be a Richardson.”
Rumours are rife in the Winnipeg-based grain industry about who might be interested in acquiring the CWB.
Would a locally established grain company, global or Canada-only, try to fit it into their organizations?
Would a global player not presently established in Canada see it as a way to get into the market?
Would a private equity company see the CWB as a nice set of agricultural commodity assets to fit into their portfolio?
Would a foreign co-operative like CHS of the United States see CWB as a way to bring Canadian farmers into the fold?
As one grain industry source said, “there are rumours about everyone, none of them based on anything.”
Friesen said money shouldn’t be a problem if it goes ahead Oct. 20.
More than $40 million has already been raised in pledges and more is coming in.
As well, the FNA has a “strategic investor.”
“They’ve got lots of money,” said Friesen.
Only three local farmers attended the Portage La Prairie meeting, which was held in the middle of a busy harvest day for most in the area.
One asked how likely a bid would be, considering that FNA talk about building a fertilizer plant and buying CWB but actually owns almost no facilities.
Friesen said FNA had attempted to buy an export terminal in 2007 but was thwarted by the grain industry, which he said was desperate to prevent farmer ownership of grain handling assets.
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