CAIS

[smcgrath76]

A few issues with CAIS...
For the intended purpose it is actually
a pretty good setup - the purpose as I
understand it is to help even out SHORT
TERM market fluctuations and weather
related issues. It does not deal with
long term concerns or DISASTERS. A good
example may be if GMO wheat is let loose
and the borders are closed to SK wheat.
That would be more than a market
fluctuation. The beef sector has been
lucky to have been saddled with BSE,
drought and extreme market
concentration, coupled with
protectionism from one of our most
important market.
I think CAIS was a risk management
program, but not a disaster program. I
think CFIA has impeded trade, been
unfair/inconsistent in its' dealings
with industry, government has been
extremely poor at trade negotiations,
and agriculture is totally off the
radar.
We have suffered from very poor
representation and inconsistent messages
from our own sector and have effectively
cut off innovation at the knees in terms
of market access, development of
processing capacity, and trade
agreements.
We are now being legislated to produce
to higher and higher standards with an
industry structure that will allow a
very select few to actually capture the
value from that investment. I think we
will see increasingly rapid
consolidation in Canada, and will become
like the poultry industry in the US.
The farmer will own the land and
facilities and produce on contract for
pennies per head per day. A few
innovators will target specific markets
(eg: local) and the family farm and
neighbourhood will basically be gone.
Unless there is a real public
determination that they want it to be
different, I don't see the status quo
changing. I do see opportunity around
the fringes and in the mainstream, but
it will look pretty different than
today.
FWIW...

[smcgrath76]

Well at least I received a decent response from kato and his points are valid. You, Hadenough on the other hand are no more than a constant complainer and must be the biggest negative person I have "never" meant. And as for the mirror comment, maybe it should be ... (I'm not going to be that immature)

Like I asked - what type of program are you looking for? What changes do you think will help/fix the issues? I did not intend to down play anyone.

I have a feeling hadenough, that the new program could send you a million every xmas and it would never solve your problems. Its just a constant limbo dance for you.

As far as your comment about secrets and the other blog we were debating, there are none. I'm sorry we have a had a bit of luck. Just like you can't believe many can do very well, others may not believe that rest are not able to follow the lead.

We do have packing plant issues and the ones that are in existence are eating up the profits which don't get to producers like yourselves. To me this is a much larger issue and the "programs"

When I mentioned management style, I was not referring to bad managers and nowhere in my post did it say that.

Management styles will include hundreds of things that make an operation different from the next. Its no different than non farming businesses. A few examples:

a) Tax management, which I think is a huge one and a large difference between farms. Every farm cranks out $40,000-80,000 (or more)in living, non deductible debt repmts each year - some choose to deal with the tax related to this, some choose to postpone or push this off. By pushing it off, you end up financing this in different ways through increased debt and then increased overhead.
b)Capital investment - Equipment costs per acre or per breeding animal - how do you compare to industry standards. There is a ton of information sites that provide information like this. Ones style is to run older, well maintained, others want new, each comes with a cost, a cost that compounds your returns positive or negative.
c) Second opinion - many of you express your frustrations with the program or your financial results - Are you interpreting them correctly. Do you have a balance sheet prepared sufficiently to capture your true net worth change or are you measuring it on cash flow and the bank account?

There would be a ton of others but like you said, "why waist my time"

Hopefully the rest of you find my two cents a but more appreciative

[burnt]

Saskfarmer99, you are so obviously working for the government or have your application in there for a job . . .

Your qualifications are obvious - so far removed from reality that it is sickening.

Yup, you are great civil servant material because you learned a long time ago the bullshit baffles brains.

CAIS, or whatever the latest version of this abortion of a farm program is called, is so ineffective that it deserves to be shot and dragged out the back so its rotten stench can no longer pollute the farming atmosphere.

I think I can safely speak for most if not all others when I say that I (we) don't want an effective farm income support program so much as I want a marketplace that actually discovers and returns the true value of what I am producing.

Furthermore, I am sick of seeing mega $ in the Ag budget being shoveled out to the inepts that administer these absolute bullshit programs that make the administrators wealthy while the supposed beneficiaries watch their lifetime savings and equity disappear down a damned rathole caused by concentration and corruption in the processing sector.

If you are serious about suggestions for improving returns, then start by addressing some of the problems I noted.

Or is reality too tough a concept for you to embrace?

[kato]

First off, I'm a her. LOL

a) Tax management. I don't think that taxes have been a weight around a lot of cattle farmer's necks lately.
b) Equipment. Let's put it this way, when we went to Ag Days in Brandon a few weeks ago, the joke was going around there that as soon as someone told a machinery salesman that they were a cattle producer, the salesman tuned out. Equipment gets bought when the old one is shot. And not a moment earlier. That's the way it works around our neighbourhood, anyway.
c) Since we're making so much money on the cattle that we don't know what to do with all the proceeds, I am now working for an accountant. I think I know my way around a balance sheet. In fact, I bet the cattle producers here have all prepared so many financial statements in the past 7 years that they can do them as well as many accountants.

The fact is that all the past years are adding up, equity is disappearing all over rural Canada, and it seems like no one cares. This has gone beyond a management issue. You can not get blood from a stone. You can be the best manager in the world, and you can't make it work after so many bad years in a row.

The dilemma is that our country is ignoring the fact that it's losing control of it's food security. If people think it's dangerous to be so reliant on exports, that is absolutely nothing compared to being reliant on imports. Our government seems quite content to put the availability of food for it's citizens in the hands of multinational corporations, factory farms, and imports from other countries. Consumers should be up in arms about this, but we can't even get a mention on the news.

[smcgrath76]

Kato, I would add to that...
The reason that the problem has been
well hidden is several fold...
1) there was a lot of equity out there
in 2003. It has been leveraged and
releveraged to provide cash (note I did
not say generate cash). Much of this
was done with some degree of faith in
government, however continually changing
messages and programs have eroded that
faith. It would likely have been less
painful to hear the brutal truth on day
1.
2) The issue affects all of Canada, but
ground zero is in rural Canada and there
are not a lot of Toronto Sun reporters
running around kato's neighbourhood
looking for a story.
3) the size and resilience of the farms
involved often lies in the fact that
they are smaller than huge and have
several enterprises. The additional off
farm income enterprise has been growing
by leaps and bounds in the farm
community. On an individual basis this
is just one more sacrifice, but it does
serve to hide the issues by bringing
much needed cash into a dire situation.
I think there is opportunity out there,
but with our current structure and state
of affairs we are severely limiting that
opportunity.