Western Canadian farmers will be marketing their wheat, durum and barley in an open market for the first time in generations with the end of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) single desk at the start of the 2012-13 crop year on Aug. 1.
Some farmers may choose to continue marketing their wheat through new voluntary pools the revamped CWB intends to offer, but there will also be other pricing options, speakers said here at the Wild Oats GrainWorld conference on Tuesday.
“If there’s one word to describe the future going forward, it’s ‘volatility,'” said Keith Bruch of Winnipeg-based Paterson GlobalFoods.
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As the harvest in southern Alberta presses on, a broker said that is one of the factors pulling feed prices lower in the region. Darcy Haley, vice-president of Ag Value Brokers in Lethbridge, added that lower cattle numbers in feedlots, plentiful amounts of grass for cattle to graze and a lacklustre export market also weighed on feed prices.
As a result, many farmers will likely be looking to market some of their wheat, durum and barley through pooling, as they did with the CWB historically. However, other pricing options will also be available.
A significant aspect of the new voluntary CWB will involve pooling options for producers, said Gord Flaten, the board’s vice-president of marketing and sales. He highlighted some of the benefits of pooling in an open market, but said the details of those options will be released over the next few weeks.
