A group of Alberta farmers says the Canadian Wheat Board shouldn’t be blamed for problems in the grain transportation system.
Steve Bothi, a grain producer from Bassano and spokesperson for the Pro-Canadian Wheat Board (Alberta) Group, said rail car unload statistics show the board is making more efficient use of the system than the private trade.
He said that raises serious questions about proposals to reduce the board’s role in transportation planning.
“If proponents of a deregulated system claim greater efficiency as a sure spinoff, they’ve got a lot of work to do to convince me,” he said.
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The group said during the first five months of the crop year, the board met 99 percent of its sales-based tonnage targets at the West Coast and 106 percent at Thunder Bay, Ont. By contrast, non-board grains achieved 88 percent and 55 percent respectively.
“We can only guess at the million of dollars farmers have paid in demurrage costs on vessels waiting in port and lost sales opportunities, but the missed delivery tonnage speaks for itself,” said Bothi.
CWB transportation policy adviser Patty Rosher said those numbers indicate the board is using all the available shipping capacity available, but the private trade isn’t.
“This information shows that we are keeping our end of the deal,” she said. “It tends to be the non-boards and non-administered grains that don’t reach their shipping targets.”
However Darrell Wallace, transportation manager for United Grain Growers Ltd., said even though non-board sales didn’t live up to the four-month shipping plan, it doesn’t reflect a loss of efficiency.
“I don’t think it has anything whatsoever to do with pinpointing where a problem is between board and non-board grains,” he said. “It has nothing to with logistical flow.”
As long as everything that arrives at port is unloaded, then there is no lost shipping capacity, he said. The only potential issue would be whether the board held back on sales because of the amount of transportation that the non-board sector said it would need.
Overall movement is good
Greg Arason, chair of the Car Allocation Policy Group, said that rather than get into a debate over whether board or non-board grains are moving more efficiently, he’d rather emphasize that grain is moving well this year.
“My view is the system overall has worked well and I don’t think either board or non-board programs have had any particular over-riding problems this year,” he said.
Total grain movement is up 19 percent this year and rail car unloads have achieved 96 percent of guidelines.
At the recent round of CWB Grain Days meetings, board officials presented statistics showing that stocks of board grains are turned over more quickly at export terminals than non-boards.
In the three months ending Dec. 31, stocks of red spring wheat in Vancouver terminals were turned over four times and durum seven times. By contrast, canola stocks were turned over two times and flax one time.
“The turnover tends to be better for board grains because we are managing the stocks over all the terminals rather than each terminal trying to manage its own terminal, so you just get a more efficient use,” said Rosher.
Wallace said that with board grains representing 80 percent of total movement, it stands to reason they would move through the system more quickly and efficiently.
