British Columbia farmers face grain shortage

Farmers in Fraser Valley in British Columbia could face grain shortages in the coming days, endangering millions of local chickens, cows and pigs, The Province newspaper has reported.
West Coast feed mills are scrambling to secure railcars of feed grain for local farms as the national railway system is overwhelmed by a record grain harvest on the Prairies and, according to some, an increase in oil and gas shipments from Alberta.
"The feed millers have had extreme difficulties getting railcars (of feed grain) into the Fraser Valley lately," said Bob Dornan, secretary manager of the Animal Nutrition Association of Canada (ANAC), B.C. division. "We're at the end of the pipeline for grain delivery, and the cars just aren't coming."
Dornan said there have been "hiccups" of poor service in the past, but the problem has been steadily growing worse: "No livestock have gone hungry yet, but we're not sure what to expect anymore."
Dornan said the export-grain market is more lucrative than the feed-grain market, and with limited ability to get export grain out of the Prairies, some firms have been prioritizing export grain at the expense of feed grain.
In a letter to several B.C. farm groups dated December 20, the ANAC outlined its efforts to urge CP and CN Rail to ensure feed-grain shipments to the Fraser Valley, warning of "potential feed supply curtailments."
"We believe railcar allocation priority is an urgent and critical issue threatening our industry," said the letter.
Otter Co-op feed manager Vafa Alizadeh said many of the large Fraser Valley mills are within a few days of temporarily shutting down because of grain shortages.
According to the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture website, there are about 1.7 million commercial-laying birds in the Fraser Valley, as well as 79 million broiler chickens. The majority of them depend on grain mixes that are milled locally from grain that originates in the Prairies.

US wheat supplies, production down from 2010 numbers

Projected ending U.S. wheat stocks for the 2011-2012 harvest year are 687 million bushels, down 122 million bushels from the 2010-2011 year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Total wheat supplies for 2011-2012 are projected down 307 million bushels, due to both smaller carryin stocks and production from 2010-2011, according to the USDA. Beginning stocks are at 809 million bushels, down 30 million bushels from May. Projected imports, at 110 million bushels, are unchanged from May, but up 10 million bushels from the 2010-2011 year.
Total projected wheat use is down 185 million bushels from 2010-2011, to 2.29 billion bushels, in spite of higher domestic use. Food use is projected at 945 million bushels, up 15 million bushels from 2010-2011, but exports are down 245 million bushels, to 1.05 billion bushels.
Total production is projected at 2.06 billion bushels, down 150 million bushels from the 2010-2011 harvest year.

GMO hullabaloo

Given the fact that world demand for food is going to skyrocket, some see it doubling, in the years ahead, it seems that the only word to describe the controversy over genetically-modified organisms is this one: nonsense. The biggest battle over GMOs right now is in the European Union (EU). And it's because of this: last summer, minute traces of unapproved GMO corn unapproved in the EU but approved in the U.S. was found in a shipment of soybeans from the U.S. to Europe. The result has been literally to freeze soybean exports to the EU, which has created nothing short of a crisis for the European feed and livestock industries.
At the moment there is only about a 30-day supply of much needed soy in Spain and several other countries. Because the U.S. cannot guarantee that soy shipments are free of traces of GMO corn, no U.S. soy is being exported to the EU. And with one of the lowest harvests of South American soybeans years due to a serious drought, there are no soybeans of South American beans available for export to anyone. Adding more pressure to the mix for the EU is the fact that China is buying large quantities of soybeans this year.
As a result, it's said that the premium on soybean meal in Europe at the moment is as much as $90/ton.The EU's stance of dragging its heels is putting its feed and livestock industries at a comparative disadvantage, but the larger issue is how its position is justified in a world that is going to need increasing amounts of food, especially animal protein, in the years ahead.
Read the full blog.