Canada Kicks Ass
Family Day hits keep coming for prairie farmers

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Robair @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:14 am

Family Day hits keep coming for prairie farmers

$1:
(February 16, 2016) Another family day domino fell this week with the report that a major Canadian food retailer was replacing pasta manufactured with prairie durum with pasta imported from Turkey of all places.

It should be remembered that with the single-desk Wheat Board pretty much all the pasta consumed in Canada was made with prairie durum. The Wheat Board had a policy of keeping competition among durum purchasers alive by equalizing freight costs for processors.
This meant more wheat and durum was milled and made into flour and pasta on the prairies than in the same grain growing areas of the United States. It also meant that the big eastern flour and pasta plants in Ontario used prairie wheat. It was a very profitable premium market for prairie farmers and took somewhere around 20% of our annual production of wheat and durum wheat.

This Wheat Board policy meant that essentially all the bread, pasta, and most of the beer in Canada was made with prairie wheat and barley. As this organization warned in 2011 “the end of the Wheat Board means the end of local food.”

Now the Wheat Board is gone along with its policies encouraging local processing. Combine this with very cheap ocean freight and it is apparently more economic for eastern retailers to buy Turkish pasta than it is to purchase locally produced pasta made with prairie durum. Ocean freight on 4,800 nautical miles from Turkey is apparently cheaper than dealing with the uncertain and unreliable private trade to acquire grain 3,300 miles away on the southern Canadian prairies.

Some Canadian pasta processors have complained this Turkish pasta is subsidized, and that may well be the case. However that ultra cheap ocean freight may also mean that sourcing wheat from the Ukraine, which is a mere 600 nautical miles away is now more economic than importing even heavily discounted prairie durum.


Nice eh?

   



BartSimpson @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:26 am

Robair Robair:
Nice eh?


It is. Absent the protectionist mechanisms of the Wheat Board the Canadian wheat industry will now have to compete in the world market and it'll have to seek efficiencies to make wheat both less expensive and profitable. The benefit to the consumer will be cheaper Canadian wheat in the long run.

We saw the same thing in the USA when protectionist controls ended back in the 1970's and the American wheat market ended up flourishing anyway.

A friend of mine, Dennis Merwin, was around when protections for the California tomato market were ended. The result was that the migratory labor that hand picked tomatoes was now prohibitively expensive for harvesting tomatoes for the sauce and paste markets. The solution? Dennis and some friends from UC Davis invented and patented a mechanical tomato harvester and these days the California tomato industry is bigger than ever.

Canada and the Canadian wheat farmer will do just fine.

And if Canadian pasta makers learn how to compete with Turkish pasta makers then they'll do fine, too.

   



martin14 @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:28 am

Robair Robair:
Family Day hits keep coming for prairie farmers

$1:
(February 16, 2016) Another family day domino fell this week with the report that a major Canadian food retailer was replacing pasta manufactured with prairie durum with pasta imported from Turkey of all places.

It should be remembered that with the single-desk Wheat Board pretty much all the pasta consumed in Canada was made with prairie durum. The Wheat Board had a policy of keeping competition among durum purchasers alive by equalizing freight costs for processors.
This meant more wheat and durum was milled and made into flour and pasta on the prairies than in the same grain growing areas of the United States. It also meant that the big eastern flour and pasta plants in Ontario used prairie wheat. It was a very profitable premium market for prairie farmers and took somewhere around 20% of our annual production of wheat and durum wheat.

This Wheat Board policy meant that essentially all the bread, pasta, and most of the beer in Canada was made with prairie wheat and barley. As this organization warned in 2011 “the end of the Wheat Board means the end of local food.”

Now the Wheat Board is gone along with its policies encouraging local processing. Combine this with very cheap ocean freight and it is apparently more economic for eastern retailers to buy Turkish pasta than it is to purchase locally produced pasta made with prairie durum. Ocean freight on 4,800 nautical miles from Turkey is apparently cheaper than dealing with the uncertain and unreliable private trade to acquire grain 3,300 miles away on the southern Canadian prairies.

Some Canadian pasta processors have complained this Turkish pasta is subsidized, and that may well be the case. However that ultra cheap ocean freight may also mean that sourcing wheat from the Ukraine, which is a mere 600 nautical miles away is now more economic than importing even heavily discounted prairie durum.


Nice eh?


So how come no one wants to name who it is ?

Name, shame, write and complain, push your MP to raise tariff / ban / on Turk pasta.

But to who ?

   



BartSimpson @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:35 am

When I go to the grocery store I have around ten to twenty different choices for pasta and I prefer Barilla. It's an Italian brand and it's cheaper than American brands and it's better pasta except for their egg noodles - Golden Grain (American) makes the best.

Over the years the shelf space for Barilla at my grocery store has grown because Barilla makes a good product.

I imagine that once Barilla hits the Canadian market the Canadian pasta makers will be in deep shit.

But the answer isn't protectionism, the answer is for them to MAKE BETTER PASTA.

:idea:

   



Robair @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:35 am

BartSimpson BartSimpson:
Robair Robair:
Nice eh?


It is. Absent the protectionist mechanisms of the Wheat Board the Canadian wheat industry will now have to compete in the world market and it'll have to seek efficiencies to make wheat both less expensive and profitable. The benefit to the consumer will be cheaper Canadian wheat in the long run.

We saw the same thing in the USA when protectionist controls ended back in the 1970's and the American wheat market ended up flourishing anyway.

A friend of mine, Dennis Merwin, was around when protections for the California tomato market were ended. The result was that the migratory labor that hand picked tomatoes was now prohibitively expensive for harvesting tomatoes for the sauce and paste markets. The solution? Dennis and some friends from UC Davis invented and patented a mechanical tomato harvester and these days the California tomato industry is bigger than ever.

Canada and the Canadian wheat farmer will do just fine.

And if Canadian pasta makers learn how to compete with Turkish pasta makers then they'll do fine, too.
There is no way for Canadian producers to compete with American and European subsidies.

The playing field has a wicked slant to it, you see.

Our previous government made these changes without a plan. Without a sniff of a plan.

Purely partisan.

   



BartSimpson @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:40 am

Make a good product and all the subsidies in the world won't mean shit.

I'm getting over a cold and what medicine did I use? Neo-Citran from Canada.

Because it works.

I buy it when I'm in Canada and I bring it home and I give boxes of it to friends. And the American pharmaceutical industry has all sorts of laws in place to prevent me from doing that... :lol:

Even with protectionist laws in place the market is still screwing them.

Make a better product and you don't need protection, the other guy will.

   



Brenda @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:40 am

It is also cheaper to fly to Europe (as a person) than it is from Calgary to Toronto.

A return ticket Castlegar-Calgary (1 hour, 15 minute flight) costs $500.
A return ticket to Amsterdam costs $700 or something... 9 hour flight.

Wake up Canada.

   



Robair @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:46 am

BartSimpson BartSimpson:
Make a good product and all the subsidies in the world won't mean shit.

I'm getting over a cold and what medicine did I use? Neo-Citran from Canada.

Because it works.

I buy it when I'm in Canada and I bring it home and I give boxes of it to friends. And the American pharmaceutical industry has all sorts of laws in place to prevent me from doing that... :lol:

Even with protectionist laws in place the market is still screwing them.

Make a better product and you don't need protection, the other guy will.


Canadian grain producers used to make a better product.

Through the grain board our global reputation for quality and on-time delivery was number one. We were able to charge a premium, and that premium was returned all the way back to the farmers growing the stuff.

That reputation has recently taken a shit-kicking.

I'm at work, but Bart has some homework to do on this issue.

   



BartSimpson @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:47 am

Brenda Brenda:
It is also cheaper to fly to Europe (as a person) than it is from Calgary to Toronto.

A return ticket Castlegar-Calgary (1 hour, 15 minute flight) costs $500.
A return ticket to Amsterdam costs $700 or something... 9 hour flight.

Wake up Canada.


No kidding!

Air Canada can't figure out why they're not doing so great with flights from Sacramento to Vancouver...

File comment: ac
AirCanada.PNG
AirCanada.PNG [ 21.42 KiB | Viewed 375 times ]

It must be all that unfair competition at the Sacramento airport. :?

   



BartSimpson @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 10:04 am

Robair Robair:

Canadian grain producers used to make a better product.

Through the grain board our global reputation for quality and on-time delivery was number one. We were able to charge a premium, and that premium was returned all the way back to the farmers growing the stuff.

That reputation has recently taken a shit-kicking.

I'm at work, but Bart has some homework to do on this issue.


Here's the beginning and end of my homework:

Catelli, Primo, Italpasta, and Griss Pasta are sold exactly nowhere in Sacramento.

Make better pasta.

   



Robair @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 10:19 am

The issue is a pasta company in Canada buying grain from Turkey when it used to be more feasible for them to buy Canadian grain.

Your last post is irrelevant.

   



BartSimpson @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 10:38 am

Robair Robair:
The issue is a pasta company in Canada buying grain from Turkey when it used to be more feasible for them to buy Canadian grain.

Your last post is irrelevant.


Did you read your own post?

$1:
(February 16, 2016) Another family day domino fell this week with the report that a major Canadian food retailer was replacing pasta manufactured with prairie durum with pasta imported from Turkey of all places.

   



Robair @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 10:56 am

FUCK

In my defense I'm designing a log grapple while trying to argue :x

   



martin14 @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 10:56 am

Ya, the Turks are selling us an added value product.

Wish we knew how to do that, but we are too stupid I guess.

   



BartSimpson @ Thu Feb 18, 2016 11:04 am

Robair Robair:
FUCK

In my defense I'm designing a log grapple while trying to argue :x


No problem. You're never an irrational poster so I figured it was something like that. [B-o]

   



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