Why not, they have everything else from BC

acrider,

when your an export nation, you tend to export.

The more we export the better off we are financially both as a nation and those that supply the product

This seems like such good news for this area. I wonder if this came from our local politicians trips to China? Then we would know the trips were not all in vain.

Whatintheheck there has been many inroads made from the trips made to China by our provincial and local politicians most notably in the forest sector Canfor got a deal to send finished lumber to China I forget how many board feet and before people start bitching we have been sending raw lots to China and Japan for 30 plus yrs.

In addition last year an agreement was signed by several local companies to provide tech and knowledge to China which IMO is huge and has far reaching benefits for us

I think Canfor is probably quite capable of making inroads to foreign markets on their own. I can’t see them sitting back and waiting for Shari Green or Pat Bell to speak for them.

And when the price of beef and milk goes up to consumers here as a result we can remind them that “…the more we export the better off we are financially both as a nation and those that supply the product.” Say it enough times, without ever stopping to think about it, and maybe they’ll even believe you. Do it enough times, and they’ll be so busy working themselves into poverty they won’t even have time to think about it.

Canfor has a whole export department in Vancouver, they are no strangers to China, they’ve been working there for twenty years!

A unique way of diversifying the local export economy. Congratulations on whoever figured this one out.

Agreed DPJ.

Toffee. You are absoluely right. Canfor has sales offices all over the world. Tokyo, and Bejing for at least 20 years.

They sell thier pulp and paper and lumber all over the world the same as West Fraser, and other big forest companies.

They do this without any input from local politicians, or IPG, who really when it comes down to it, havent got a clue about markets, or international trade, etc;

In fact, I understand that when the Canfor split into lumber and pulp, that they were considering changing the logo to differentiate the two but did not because the logo was so well known in the Asian markets they had established over the decades.

I think this sounds like good news. Wonder if more land will be required to feed the market. God only knows we have the land. Second largest country in the world ….. mostly mountains and ice and snow …. ;-)

Maybe someone will consider putting in a siding with loading facilities in the Vanderhoof area if this trade becomes steady. Seems crazy to truck it to PG.
————————————

So we stop all international trade, socredible?

is good news.

Who would’a thought!! Hay, eh?

So if the market has been so bad lately, is this stuff rotting in the fields? Is land lying fallow? Should we use the land next to the airport that used to be ALR and produce hay there? …..

Just askin’ …. ;-)

Good “hay” statement Gus. There is alot of potential land that can be used for hay just sitting there doing nothing.

Always thought that a good market for Hay would be in the Anchorage Alaska area. This hay could be loaded into railcars (woodchip cars) and go to Prince Rupert, and the on the Whittier Alaska Barge to Alaska. Seems to me that over the years they have experienced a shortage of hay.

Dont know how cost effective it would be to truck hay to Prince George, break it down and into bales, and re ship to China, however on the surface it seems somewhat cost prohibitive. Shipping hay would be seasonal wouldnt it.??? China must be willing to pay a good price.

Container distribution Terminals are designed to cover outlying areas up to approx 500 Miles so there is not a hope in hell that any facilities would be built in Vanderhoof. CN Presently has terminals in Vancouver, Edmonton, Grande Prairie,Calgary, Kamloops, Prince George.

There are surplus containers in Prince George at this time to handle hay, however when (if) the US and Canada economy improves these containers will become less and less available because they will be loaded with products from the USA, Eastern Canada, and the Canadian Midwest.

People should keep in mind that there is not an unlimited capacity for loading containers in Pr Rupert. Only a portion of the vessels containers are unloaded in Pr Rupert, and therefore only a like number of loaded containers can be added to the ship.

Have a nice day.

They can’t export round bales as the cows in China won’t eat the hay because they think they are not getting a square meal!!!

^^^^ AHAHA!!!!

Maybe our Mayor and Council could set up an empty container as an RV and then use it to get transported to China. It would save a boat load of money- what do you think Ms. Mayor?!!

absolutely agree with socredible

It begs these questions, what are Chinese cows walking on, paved roads?

What are Chinese cows eating now?

What are they using Chinese cow poo for?

Isn`t cow poo used to fertilize the cow fields?

Toxic milk from China, toxic baby formula, toxic pet food from China.

I`m not against BC Farmers and ranchers exporting the product.

Or maybe those 100 million empty apartments in China will be turned into upscale homes for cows, hard to grow hay hay hay in cement buildings.

Cheers

Socredible. Are you in favour of no exports? Come on, Canada can not be a closed economy that relies on internal demand. Poor prices with excess capacity only points to less acerage farmed. Same with oil. Stop all pipelines and watch the O & G industry collapse, like the NEP that Gus loved.

People seem to enjoy cheaply made imported goods from China. We would be paying a lot more for a lot of stuff if it wasn’t for Chinese imports. It can’t be a one way street.

socredible, you are absolutely right. The more we export the higher prices we will pay for our own products. Perhaps the profit from the hay will stay at home. But timber, gas ans oil the profits will disappear to foreigh corporations.

We are raping our country for profit when in fact it needs to be reinvested in secondary industry that will insure our futher growth. We are like a bunch of drunken fools peeing away our fortune.
Cheers

“The more we export the higher prices we will pay for our own products”
Now get in the car, we gotta hit Walmart

Retired, all profits DO NOT disappear to foreign corps. There are many canadian companies involved and massive royalties for government, taxes on employees, etc.

Take off the blinders and look at reality.

Perhaps now our farmers will be growing more alfalfa, IF they have the water supply. I wonder if there is a way we could be exporting silage too?

No, gus, I’m not against foreign trade if that’s what it actually is ~ TRADE. The exchange of our country’s relative surpluses for the alternate relative surpluses of some other country.

And an export of high grade alfalfa that may well be ‘surplus’ to our own current needs here is quite commendable.

But that isn’t quite the same as harboring the notion that the MORE we export, of everything, the richer we’re all going to become.

If the export of alfalfa rose to a quantity that caused a rise in price of that product to domestic beef and dairy producers who use it, then the price of beef and milk to consumers here will certainly follow. How does that make us any richer?

Once again there’s a confusion between what is really no more than inflation, and actual prosperity. Which latter involves a rise in the PURCHASING POWER of the consumer’s dollar.

Not just a rise in the number of dollars he’s getting accompanied by an even larger rise in the number of them he has to shell out to buy anything with them.

Maybe the hay could be pelletized the same way as planer shavings and sawdust are pelletized. Bulk density goes from 5 lbs per cubic foot to 30 pounds per cubic foot. 1/6 the shipping capacity need. BC can densify the hay before the cows do.
I am sure cows would just love BC grown densified food and on the plus side on a cold day you could just burn hay pellets to keep warm.
Seems like a “green” solution to me.

This is a good natural export for our region. China is near contaminated from incidents like Fukishima, so they have no choice but to look elsewhere for livestock feed. More so in the future too.

I have a cousin with 6000 acres in Vanderhoof, so I’m sure they’ll like this idea a lot.

give them last years hay.

The farm industry has been struggling for decades and your worried about a price increase for beef? Heaven help us if farmers actually started making a profit… There’s a lot of land available for hay production here, but it lies fallow because its very tough to make a profit from it. Hopefully this new venture is succesful!

Just how many Chinese workers will we need to harvest this hay? I’m sure us rubes don’t know how to run balers so we will outsource the labour to China.

PREDICTION.

BY THIS TIME IN 2015 THERE WILL BE NO HAY OR LUMBER BEING EXPORTED THROUGH THE PORT OF PRINCE RUPERT.

If there is a market for Hay in China it will only be a matter of time till the big boys in the Peace River, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba gobble up the market. Because of thier location they will get first dibs on any empty containers. A shortage of containers already happens in Pr George from time to time, and the lumber is then shipped to Vancouver by truck and rail rather than by container to Pr Rupert. The same shortage will put Mr Wu out of business.

If you ever tried to get equipment from CN Rail when there is a shortage you will know what I mean. The big shippers like Canfor, and West Fraser get first dibs on all containers in this area.

Dont hold your breath on this one.

We have a hard time growing alfalfa in this area. Most of the hay you see is timothy, brome, fescue or some combination. I do not think the price of hay will go up much.

JohnnyBelt
People seem to enjoy cheaply made imported goods from China. We would be paying a lot more for a lot of stuff if it wasn’t for Chinese imports. It can’t be a one way street.
Well, I do not know what people you mention.
Most of my friends and myself do not buy cheap Made in China, for it is waste of money, as it does not last long and is mostly junk and cheap made.
Was just yesterday in Home Depot and looked for kitchen sinks – and wow, many boxes had the Maple Leaf on it and it was printed in BIG LETTERS – Made in Canada. And the price? Not more than a Made in China one. So what do you think, I buy?
And junk from the Dollar Store? Who really needs that.

Enough to make up 21 temporary beds? We could ship home those “temporary” workers.

People only buy ‘junk’ from abroad because they no longer have sufficient incomes to buy anything better. Whether that’s something made in Canada, or imported.

If you look at the ‘big picture’ instead of simply extrapolating someone finding a new market in China or elsewhere for some product we can supply, and then believing that if we only could do ‘more’ of that everything economic would be sweetness and light, we might want to remember that there is NO modern, industrialised country anywhere that can buy ALL its own production and fully pay for it from the total amount of wages, salaries and dividends ~ incomes, to consumers, for that’s what these three things are ~ DISTRIBUTED in the course of providing that production.

Now if you CAN’T buy ALL your own production from what you’ve earned in making it, i.e., in the SAME ‘cycle of production’, whatever period of time you want that to be, then how are you going to be able to buy its exchange through export? For fundamentally, to make any sense whatsoever, all international trade is BARTER.

After all, is not international TRADE supposed to be just that? BARTER. You don’t see that because national currencies are BOUGHT AND SOLD ~ they don’t ‘circulate’ internationally. The hay farmer doesn’t get paid in Chinese yuan. He gets paid in Canadian dollars. And the exchange rate is HIGHLY MANIPULATED to favor currency traders.

Trade internationally is properly the exchange of one country’s relative surpluses, things it’s able to produce in excess of its own needs, for the alternate relative surpluses of some other country.

So far as manufactured goods go, the only sensible reason to import any of them are if those goods are BETTER than what can be made here. For bringing in anything else is really false economy. There’s all the very REAL costs of transportation of product, and the vast amounts of energy involved, (energy which we’re continually told we must conserve, producing emissions we’re supposed to be reducing, and are even taxed to force that proposition on us). Look what amount of that is expended in moving resources half way around the world, and finished product back again (to be buried in a landfill shortly thereafter, so that the process can keep repeating.) Is it ‘carbon taxed’? Why not?

So far as the notion that the Chinese work cheaper than we do ~ that the average Chinese worker works harder, or longer, or is more productive ~ lets remember that a hour’s labor is an hour’s labor, wherever it is performed. And in terms of actual productivity per man hour worked, the only true measure of that, I would wager right now that more plants of the same age in North America as those in China, in any industry, are just as, or more, productive in actual output.

suzir: “Most of my friends and myself do not buy cheap Made in China, for it is waste of money, as it does not last long and is mostly junk and cheap made.”

The full parking lot at Walmart would like to disagree wih you.

suzir: “And junk from the Dollar Store? Who really needs that.”

Apparently lots of people. How many dollar stores are there in this town?

and one day we won’t have any factories anymore here in Canada or the USA, for we think, the slaves in China can do the work –
and one day we won’t have any resources here anymore, for we gave all cheap away –
and one day we are sitting here having nothing –
and than they can dictate the prices and we will pay for it

Is it that, what we really want? I don’t think so!!!

The question, I think, is “how” will we then pay for it?

For an international trade for ‘money’ itself rather than one involving the actual exchange of ‘product’ is really meaningless.

But if people can be so imbued with the notion that ‘money’ is ‘wealth’ that they will do anything to get some, and the actual creation of the money they need to get has been completely monopolised, not by some nation, but by a supra-national clique that owes allegiance to no nation, that clique has just assumed the power over life and death itself.

For better or worse, we’ll have One World Government. Unelected, unappointed even, (except from within the heirarchy of High Finance), and completely undemocratic in the sense that the definition of democracy is, “The ability of each individual to make his or her policy effective unto his or herself.”

If what we’ve seen of this so far is any indication of what’s to come, it’ll be worse by far. Already the type of international ‘trade’ we’re prostrating ourselves to engage in impoverishes the importing nation, which loses its industries, while it enslaves the workforce of the exporting one. The standard of living for SOME in both countries may still be rising. But the COST of living, in BOTH, is always rising faster. And that clique who makes up the difference with debts that can never be repaid extends its psychological stranglehold over all.

I absolutely agree with you, socredible .

Just cannot understand, why most people cannot see that, they cannot be all that .
It is just scary to see what is happening.