IMPACT OVERBLOWN

Re: CWB impact clear (SP, July 11). Glenn Tait’s letter disregards facts that don’t support his ideology.

He blames the lack of protein premiums on the loss of the wheat board’s single desk. However, the premiums are truly nonexistent this year not just here but in the U.S. as well and are completely unrelated to whether there’s a single sales desk.

The premium for 14 per cent protein over 13 per cent is zero now, and has been pretty well all year. Although Tait doesn’t like the reason, the fact is that a large proportion of the crop in North America is high quality and high protein. This always depresses the protein premiums, even if there’s a single desk around.

Tait compares the price of milling wheat to that of feed wheat and finds that premium has ended as well, and you guessed it, blames that on the loss of the single desk. What he fails to see is that the price of feed wheat is a function of other feed grains such as corn.

Corn hit record prices this year, gaining ground on wheat prices just about everywhere in the world, but also supporting the price the feed industry would pay for wheat.

Tait talks about the effect of market forces never before being this drastic, but the fact is that market conditions, particularly around corn, really have not been this drastic before, with the world almost running out of corn. John De Pape FARMCo Winnipeg