Manitoba cooperator

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Cold Canola How to manage cold, wet canola » PG 20

More milk Extra processing means hitting quota » PG 13

SERVING MANITOBA FARMERS SINCE 1925 | Vol. 74, No. 43 | $1.75

October 27, 2016

Small producers will hear more about new chicken quota program Nov. 1 A farm directmarketing group questions if this is the right approach

manitobacooperator.ca

Wide basis cost farmers billions The University of Manitoba’s Derek Brewin suspects grain companies got the money instead

BY LORRAINE STEVENSON Co-operator staff

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spokesman for Manitoba Chicken Producers hopes a meeting November 1 sets the record straight on how its new annual specialty quota program set to launch in 2017 will operate. MCP executive director Wayne Hiltz will speak in Winnipeg that day to a producer meeting organized by Direct Farm Manitoba. Hiltz said he can address concerns the group has raised, which are based on misinterpretations of how the program will operate. “The concerns that we’ve heard to date, in some cases, were false concerns,” he said, adding that the main thing he wants cleared up is the assertion that the program will somehow force producers now doing specialty chicken to roll back production. “We are not reducing anyone’s ability to produce chicken,” said Hiltz. “Those who have been doing See CHICKENS on page 7 »

University of Manitoba agricultural economist Derek Brewin suspects grain companies captured $3.5 billion that should’ve gone to western Canadian wheat farmers due to a wider-than-normal export basis.   PHOTO: laura rance

BY ALLAN DAWSON Co-operator staff

Publication Mail Agreement 40069240

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ho grabbed more than $3.5 billion in revenue from the Prairie grain trade over two recent crop years? Many have asked that question and now a University of Manitoba agriculture economist has weighed into the debate. Derek Brewin says it was likely captured by the various grain companies that pocketed the difference in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 shipping seasons. “Despite a fall in the export price of

just $1 a tonne (in 2013-14) the farmer average return fell by $80 (due to a wider export basis),” Brewin said in a lecture Oct. 19. “We are suggesting the grain companies pocketed most of that difference.” But he can’t prove it because most grain companies operating in Canada don’t make their financial reports public. Brewin knows the railways didn’t scoop the money, because while the maximum revenue entitlement allows the railways a fair return hauling grain, it blocks them from charging what the market will bear. The $3.5-billion loss is based on farmers exporting 22.3 million and

22.15 million tonnes of wheat in 201314 and 2014-15, respectively, multiplied by the extra $80 in basis. Brewin isn’t the first agricultural economist to conclude farmers lost billions of dollars because of a wider export basis, defined as the difference between the price received by the farmer for his or her grain and the price of that grain loaded in a ship at port. University of Saskatchewan agricultural economist Richard Gray estimates the loss at between $5 billion and $6.5 billion, depending on the assumptions used. See WIDE BASIS on page 6 »

Grain City: Winnipeg civic leader wants to promote agriculture » PAGE 19


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