Saskatoon – The Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission (Sask Wheat) is calling on the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) to create an export sales reporting program to put farmers on equal footing with other supply chain participants and enable farmers to make more informed marketing decisions.
In light of the Canada Grain Act review and a resolution passed at Sask Wheat’s 2021 Annual General Meeting regarding export sales reporting, Sask Wheat commissioned a report on “Data Requirements for a Transparent Market” completed by Mercantile Consulting Venture Inc. The report provides a comprehensive overview of data gaps in grain markets and the solutions required to put producers on an equal footing when planning their cropping decisions and marketing their production. The report is now available on Sask Wheat’s website.
Sask Wheat believes the current review of the Canada Grain Act provides a great opportunity to expand the CGC’s responsibilities in terms of collection and dissemination of data to improve market transparency.
The report found that lack of appropriate data led to producers missing out on better sales timing in the current crop year. This not only impacted farmers’ bottom lines but led to a larger loss to the Canadian economy because of the effect of agricultural crop production on other sectors of the economy.
“Having this additional information is critical for grain farmers to improve the profitability of their businesses,” said Sask Wheat Chair Brett Halstead. “Farmers have been calling for improved market transparency so they can be on a more equal footing with others in the grain supply chain. This report makes it clear that farmers and the Canadian economy are losing money because of this lack of information.”
In addition to export sales reporting, the Mercantile Consulting report also identifies weekly port loading data, annual rail cost data and annual elevator handling cost data as current gaps in the system. The report provides a thorough analysis of current data sources and determines which additional market information would be most useful to farmers and how best to make it available in a regular, efficient, and timely manner.
Sask Wheat strongly believes that Canadian farmers need timely access to sales and export data, similar to the data available to American farmers as collected and published by the USDA, and is recommending, as part of Sask Wheat’s submission to the Canada Grain Act review, that the CGC create a daily and weekly export sales reporting program. Providing data on export sales will allow producers to better understand market dynamics and time their sales to improve profits.
Sask Wheat encourages all producers to get involved in the Canada Grain Act consultations which close on April 30, 2021.
Source : saskwheat