Spring
2016
Grains
West
8
THE
FARMGATE
OPENBOOKS
DAILYCASHBIDSWEBSITEATTRACTINGUSERS
LESS THAN ONE YEAR AFTER ITS
inception, the Price & Data Quotes (PDQ)
website (pdqinfo.ca) has proven to be a
popular medium for farmers to get the best
bang for their wheat, peas and canola.
The website was spearheaded by Alberta
Wheat Commission (AWC) and launched
last September. It has since attracted 1,500
registered users, about 75 per cent of whom
are farmers. More than 40 per cent of its
user base accesses PDQ on mobile devices.
The website has a simple purpose: dis-
play spot and forward bid prices updated
once daily after market close from nine
strategic locations—including three in
Alberta—on No. 1 Canada Western Red
Spring, Canada Western Amber Durum
and Canada Prairie Spring Red wheats,
canola and yellow peas. The goal is to give
users a real opportunity to make informed
sales decisions via increased transparen-
cy. Information is aggregated daily and
supplied to AWC from members of the
Western Grain Elevator Association.
The website gives users a customizable
dashboard where they can view commod-
ity prices in bushels or tonnes and Ca-
nadian or American currency, plus view
commodity graphing of historic pricing. A
recently added feature gives users access
to expanded basis information including
currency adjusted basis levels.
“This has been a piece of information
that’s been absent forever in wheat,” said
Russ Crawford, vice-president of FARMCo
and PDQ project administrator. “In canola
there’s a good history—ICE has been
capturing market data for decades. With
wheat, there was nothing.”
Within the next six months, the PDQ
website will also display terminal and
destination price indicators, and improve
the user experience with the addition of
notifications when the number of reporting
elevators in a region is lower than required.
Looking ahead, Crawford believes bar-
ley should be the next addition to PDQ.
“That would be our very next commodity
we would add on this platform,” he said,
adding that the main obstacle to adding
certain crops, such as malt barley, is
that nobody knows the cash value of the
grain.
David Derwin, commodity futures ad-
visor for PI Financial in Winnipeg, agrees
with the sentiments on cash pricing, and is
thankful that the door has finally opened
for Prairie farmers. “It really levels the
playing field,” said Derwin. “It’s been a long
time coming and I’m glad it’s finally here.”
Derwin has advised clients on the
futures market on a daily basis for two
decades, but he is just starting to work PDQ
into his daily routine, saying he uses it “al-
most every day” thanks to real cash grain
prices. If a client in western Manitoba
wants to see yellow pea bids, it’s a few sec-
onds between the question and the answer.
Likewise, a southern Alberta wheat farmer
curious about No. 1 CWRS or an inquisitive
southeastern Saskatchewan farmer looking
at amber durum can find answers to these
questions in a few seconds.
Moving forward, Derwin is hoping to
have access to historical basis levels and
analyze month-over-month and year-over-
year numbers.
If all goes as planned, Crawford is
optimistic the hopes of people like Derwin
will become a reality following updates for
PDQ’s user base.
“We’ll move away from one price daily
to more live pricing,” he said. “We can do
that by having our basis levels attached to
a 10-minute delay futures contract.”
Currently, prices are updated after mar-
ket close on trading days, which means
PDQ updates its prices around 2:05 p.m.
Central Standard Time. An ultimate goal
is to have notifications pushed to users’
smartphones, triggered by price thresh-
olds users can set for themselves. “It’s not
telling you what to do, but it’s responding
to your parameters. It’s a safer way to look
at it,” said Crawford of mobile alerts.
The PDQ project was launched last year
at FarmTech during AWC’s annual general
meeting, when then-federal agriculture
minister Gerry Ritz pledged $742,000
of support for the project through the
AgriRisk Initiatives program.
