Hoar frost, dazzling bright, white hoar frost! That was the vision on Friday morning Feb. 14. That is the first hoar frost in over a month. This will give us a rain mid-August that will help fill the crop. I like to see the hoar frost. It brightens up an otherwise glum winter. With no leaves on the trees the countryside looks very bleak. Thank you, Big Guy, for the hoar frost!
The wheat is slowly starting to move and the grain companies are begrudgingly starting to pay a little more for the wheat. The price of wheat has edged up about a buck. It's not nearly enough to make anybody put any serious input in yet, but the price is moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, the powers that be have decided to lower the price on Canola as it has lost 50 cents a bushel in the last week. What was this move down caused by? Futures market or increase in the basis? I don't know because I don't follow the market closely since I have sold all the canola I had. I didn't have that much.
Since we have lost the Wheat Board, the system is showing the warts and carbuncles that were hidden as long as the Wheat Board was there. I wasn't happy with the Wheat Board as I felt that we were not getting full value for our wheat. I could look across the border and see that I could get more for my wheat. I had to laugh when Cargill, the biggest free trader in the world came to Canada and became an agent of the wheat board so they could handle wheat board grains. They soon said not a word about the Wheat Board. They were too busy with their hand in the cookie jar.
Under the Wheat Board system, after 10 days the elevator companies could charge storage on the grain on hand. The companies were agents of the Wheat Board and charged for the grain in stock in their elevators. The storage never used to be this high but today it is 12 cents a bushel a day. Although it would appear to be small it came to huge money that the Wheat Board had to pay the companies. That was farmers' money. The last couple of years that we had an elevator in Waseca, they filled it to the roof with wheat. They never shipped a bushel. The storage paid the agent's wages and more besides. That is why final payments were never as large as could have been if you could sell your wheat south of the border. The grain companies got the gravy!
When the Canadian Wheat Board was operating, if ships were waiting to load in port there was demurrage charged. The Canadian Wheat Board paid the demurrage. Again, they used farmers' money. There are now 30 ships sitting, waiting for grain in the Vancouver harbour and now the grain companies are on the hook for the demurrage. They booked the ships expecting railroads to deliver the grain. The railroads did not deliver the grain! So now the grain companies are trying to steal wheat at half price from the farmers to help pay for the demurrage. Funny how that works, always looking for someone else to pay your bills.
Another way grain companies make money is they take one per cent shrinkage on every bushel handled. Well, shrinkage was invented in the old days because the old wooden elevators always had some leakage between bin and spouting. This was to be fair and compensate the grain companies for any losses in handling grain. Now the new inland terminals are leak free, in fact they even contain and sell the dust. Now this one per cent shrinkage is pure gravy. The numbers are huge! Most inland terminals handle 10 million bushels or more per year. And where does the money come from? It is deducted off every farmer's grain cheque, where did you think??
Then we have the 100 cars incentive. The railways wanted the grain companies to consolidate the number of elevators in the system. The railways get about $330,000 for every 100-car train hauled to the coast. That money is freight deducted off every farmer's grain cheque. If the grain companies can take 100 cars at a time and load them in 24 hours, the railways will rebate back to the grain companies $54,000. What a sweet deal! For the grain companies! It has really worked well for the railroads. A farmer has to travel 60, 70 miles if you want to go to the next spot. Everybody wins here but the farmer, and they are using money skinned off the backs of farmer to grease the wheels.
That is four ways the grain companies have to gather in unearned money. Oh, and they also get paid for handling, cleaning and weighing and all that other normal stuff besides. These costs are also deducted off the farmer's cheque. What else is new?
In the last budget the federal government cancelled the Wealth Immigrant Investor Program except for Quebec. I don't know who dreamed up this plan, but if you had $1.6 million and were willing to loan the government $800,000 interest free for five years, you could have fast track citizenship. Apparently there were 500 people waiting to get into Vancouver. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is unhappy about the exception for Quebec. "Why should one province receive special privileges?" he asks. Good point, Bradley, why should they?
Joke of the week: My mom's friend, Evelyn, was a very robust woman in both spirit and size. She was in the hospital, not feeling well, but her sense of humour was still top notch. Mom and Ev were chatting when the surgeon came in with her chart. "Evelyn," he said, "it says here that you're 79 years old, but that doesn't seem right." "Well. It's true," she said. "I'll be 80 at the end of this year." "You don't have any wrinkles on your face!" he exclaimed. "Oh, that's easy to explain," Evelyn quickly replied. "I don't have a bra on!" Oh my, oh my! (you can never trust a senior!)
