Richardson, Dreyfus join others, sign deals for CWB grain

More access for farmers | Agreement also provides CWB with access to Richardson’s port facilities

CWB has signed another commercial grain handling agreement, this one with Richardson International, the largest privately owned grain handling company in Canada.

The deal means farmers who sell their grain through CWB will have access to more than 170 delivery points across the West, including 41 Richardson Pioneer facilities located in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

The agreement also provides CWB with access to Richardson’s port facilities located at Vancouver and Thunder Bay.

“With this important agreement, our network of delivery locations for CWB grain has expanded to include the vast majority of elevators in Western Canada,” said CWB president and chief executive Ian White. “Farmers can sign CWB contracts, confident that they can deliver grain to a country location nearby.”

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The handling agreement with Richardson is the second in as many days to be announced by CWB.

On July 31, the voluntary marketing agency confirmed a similar deal with Louis Dreyfus Canada.

Louis Dreyfus has 10 modern, high-throughput facilities on the Prairies including two in Manitoba, five in Saskatchewan, two in Alberta and one in British Columbia.

Based on total storage capacity, it ranks as the sixth largest grain handler in Canada, with total capacity of nearly 350,000 tonnes.

CWB now has commercial handling agreements with Viterra, Richardson, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, Mission Terminal, West Central Road and Rail, South West Terminal, Delmar Commodities, Linear Grain and Agro Source.

Agreements have yet to be reached with Paterson Grain and Parrish & Heimbecker.

Together, those companies own approximately 50 primary elevators on the Prairies and have a combined storage capacity of approximately 800,000 tonnes.

White said he expects additional agreements to be reached shortly with the remaining Prairie grain companies, White said.

He also urged producers to sign CWB contracts as early as possible to ensure guaranteed access into the pools and to assist the agency in dealing with logistical constraints.

“The constraints (that we face) are really about the available shipping windows that all companies are going to face, particularly as they deliver grain through to the west coast handling system,” White said.

“We have good handling agreements in place that give us access to that but at the end of the day, we don’t have unlimited access….We have been saying to farmers that the earlier they can tell us what grain they are going to have to deliver and the delivery period that they are going to be choosing, that gives us greater opportunity to fill that capacity that we already have.”

As of Aug. 1, the CWB ceased to be the sole marketer of wheat, durum and malting barley produced in Western Canada.

It now operates as a voluntary marketing agency, competing with the private grain trade for the opportunity to sell farmers’ grain and oilseed crops.

The CWB does not own its own grain handing facilities. Instead, it must negotiate grain handling agreements with private sector companies in order to get farmers’ grain to market.

White said last week that the agency has not ruled out the possibility of acquiring its own grain handling assets in the future.

Richardson Pioneer delivery locations in Western Canada:

Alberta:

Carseland, Dunmore, Lamont, Legacy, Morinville, Nampa, Olds, Oyen, Rycroft, Vulcan

Saskatchewan:

Balgonie, Canora, Carrot River, Corinne, Coronach, Dixon, Estevan, Hamlin, Kemnay, Last Mountain, Marshall, Melfort, Murphys, Nokomis, Reed Lake, Saskatoon, Swift Current, Wadena, Weyburn, Whitewood, Yorkton

Manitoba: