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This article was published 29/10/2014 (2153 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CANADA has the best grain-handling transportation systems in the world, but it's imperative it's always at its best.

That's what Mark Hemmes, president of Quorum Corp. said at the Cereals North America 2014 conference in Winnipeg on Wednesday. The comment was made in the context of the grain-transportation crisis that occurred last winter.

KEN GIGLIOTTI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Bruce Burnett of the CWB speaks Wednesday.

"We have more and greater challenges than anyone else selling grain into the world market," he said. "If we are not the best, we are just not a player."

Those challenges include the great distances our grain has to travel to get to port as well as severe winter conditions that were at the extreme last year.

Edmonton-based Quorum is contracted by the federal government to monitor the western grain-transportation system. Hemmes said while there really was a dramatic confluence of the largest grain crop in history with the coldest winter that caused a crisis in the system last year, it would be wrong to think the system is out of the woods.

"This crop year is expected to be between 73 million and 75 million tonnes compared to 80 million to 82 million tonnes of supply last year," he said. "This year, from a supply perspective, will be the second-highest year of movement ever seen in history. It is an important factor to remember."

The federal government's imposition of a minimum threshold for the two national railways to each move 500,000 tonnes per week broke the log-jam this spring.

But Hemmes said the historically long lineups of ships waiting to load at West Coast ports -- sometimes as many as 30 -- are continuing this year. That means they will be racking up record-breaking demurrage charges again this year.

He said there is no doubt the railroads have become more efficient over the past five years, but he said that level of performance will be put to the test this crop year as well.

"We are seeing fairly good volumes this year -- higher than the five-year average -- just slightly below last year," he said. "The next few weeks will tell us how well things will move through the winter, which hopefully will not be as cold as last winter."

Hemmes said it will be up to historians to determine whether last winter's problems would have disappeared with the arrival of milder weather regardless of the government-imposed thresholds, but there is clearly not as large a crop to deal with this year.

At the same conference, Bruce Burnett, the CWB's crop and weather specialist, said in addition to a smaller crop, it is of much lower quality because of late planting and heavy rains in eastern Saskatchewan and western Manitoba in late June and early July. That is especially true when it comes to durum wheat, because while Canadian Western Red Spring wheat is grown across the Prairies, durum is mostly grown in the areas hardest hit by the extreme precipitation this year.

The lower-quality crop means there is greater demand and higher prices for premium quality.

When it comes to durum, Burnett said, even though the quality is down, demand continues to be high. He said Algeria just signed a large contract for mid-grade Canadian durum, when that country would have typically bought a higher grade.

He said the French durum crop suffered from lower quality this year as well.

"It all reminds us that quality is all in the eye of the beholder," Burnett said.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca