Organizations representing Saskatchewan farmers want more detailed and timely information about grain sales, similar to the United States and European Union.
In late October, the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) and Sask Crops – consisting of SaskBarley, SaskOats, Sask Wheat and Saskatchewan Pulse Growers – asked the federal government to introduce an Export Sales reporting program.
"We like to think that we live in a free market society, but the asymmetrical nature of grain marketing is such that farmers and the industry at large don't have access to the same type and amount of data that some of our international competitors have. It puts us at a competitive disadvantage, both from an on-farm perspective of actually making informed and timely decisions." said Jeremy Welter, a farmer from the Kerrobert area and an APAS Vice-President.
APAS and SaskCrops have been working on this file for years, including commissioning a study by Marlene Boersch with Mercantile Consulting.
"Are we trying to maximize exports and maximize overall GDP returns to the participants? Then very clearly in today's world, improved and additional data will give us responsiveness, it will give us the ability to make smarter and more timely marketing decisions, and it will also influence how we choose the production of the next crop." said Boersch.
The study suggests providing additional market data on sales and grain movement could generate additional returns of up to $56.5 million annually for Canadians farmers.
"Since we haven't come up with the golden egg that will solve all our productivity problems, we better start working on many small improvements within the system, i.e. timeliness, better sales decisions, and harvesting some of that money in order to compete with some of our peers that already have some of this data." she said, adding most of the information in Canada currently is lagging well behind the market.
"All we have is very delayed Stats Canada data, and for example at the moment we haven't even seen October data yet. And other than that, we have the Canadian Grain Commission handling data, which many people look at faithfully every week, but again that's execution data. It has nothing to do with what's going on in the market right now. "
Boersch says Canadian farmers are at a disadvantage compared to their U.S. counterparts.
"It's very clear that producers are not working under the same level of data and under the same level of data availability as some of the grain companies are," she said. "Almost all of the very same companies, they operate in other jurisdictions where that is not the case, so I think they would certainly be equipped to deal with it and to get used to having a more level playing field."
Some concerns have been raised about increasing the amount of data available.
"I think the amount that it would help farmers making market decisions would be offset by the fact that when you make this kind of information public, it also means that all those competitors in all of the other countries, as well as the buyers, have got all this advanced information, and they would use that to leverage their own position," said Mark Hemmes, the President of Quorum, a company that compiles weekly data on grain transportation in Canada.
"If this was to move forward, you have to be really, really careful about how you aggregate the data in such a fashion that you do not betray commercial confidences that would put Canada at a disadvantage, as opposed to providing that one advantage to the one stakeholder."
Hemmes suggests that Canada could have issues adopting a U.S. type reporting system.
"The U.S. is probably two to three times higher volume in what they export on an annual basis. Therefore, when they aggregate data to conceal some confidential information, which they do in their sales reporting, it doesn't have the same kind of effect as you would in a smaller market like what we have in Canada. And I have a concern there."
If Canada moves ahead with additional sales data reporting, Hemmes suggests a pilot project.
"Work with a broad group of stakeholders to say, what if we put this out? How would you use it? Kind of a show me perspective. You would either get a lot of criticism or you might open (it) up that would say, well, maybe this isn't so bad. It could go either way."
The comments Welter, Boersch, and Hemmes made were during a webinar organized by APAS and SaskCrops.
(With files from Neil Billinger, CJWW)
