abn amro clueless, page-7

Interesting to raise that Stedman. Plastic tubing is an option and much cheaper if your farm is located where cockatoos are not resident. Once they get a taste for cereal grains and pierce the polyethylene there is no stopping repeat offences and the seal is lost exposing the grain to weevil damage.

I have just had a 500t silo erected by GSI (American listed). I plan on installing one a year and will be pencilling it in as a fixed cost in all future budgets. Grain and handling costs are about to explode and when a normal season returns there will be bottlenecks all over the place. GSI have just finished a booked out season and are anticipating a massive increase in orders for 2008. Shortages of trucks and staff to drive them, shortages of staff at CBH, and CBH friendly rather than farmer friendly opening hours at the bins will force more to have to invest in on-farm storage.

And you are right ... when CBH list they WILL need to be owned. Their CEO Imre Menchelyi at a recent Nuffield Farming Scholars conference told everyone that they had been approached by every major investment bank in the last 12 months .. just tyre kicking but just to illustrate the attractiveness of their infrastructure arrangements going into a grain bull market to end all others.

Farmers for the most part are generally unaware of the trainwreck that lies at the end of the next average production season. A wave of 'unbudgeted' costs. And given an inevitable shortage of trucks you can expect to see SIGNIFICANT freight price rises - definately double digit. Farmers a long way from ports will get the largest unwelcome surprises.