Changing of the farming landscape in this area 2012

[gaucho]

Kato... very very well put...especially the last part... same story around her - chemical agriculture

[smcgrath76]

It is not "chemical agriculture" it is
agriculture of dependency and that is
the driving reason behind its' promotion
and apparent success. It is hard to be
independent when you have signed a
property rights agreement with Company X
for seed, and are locked into a system
of inputs from Company Y to get a crop,
all the while serving a contract with
Company Z, which are all owned in part
by Companies A, B and C.
Independence and low input/high return
agriculture is not in the interest of
the folks who don't get dirt under their
nails.

[ALLFARMER]

I dont share the fear of losing a large plant.

If one plant closes and they cut back on what their
paying the herd sell off continues.

Nobody will work for free anymore. Too much
invested to not make money at it.

[Mufferaw]

From my own prespective I am looking at increasing the number of cows to increase my quality of life. Currently I have 90 cows, 500 seeded acreas and work full time through the winter. Subsequently being pulled in 3 directions isn't good for more or my family.

Focusing on one reduces my stress and increases my family time. The way I look at it cattle are no more time in a year than running a grain operation - time is distributed differently.

Typically you kill 3 weeks seeding, 3 weeks at harvest, and couple of weeks spraying etc... 16 hour days = 620 hours/year. I spend roughly 10-12 hours/week with the cattle which is roughly the same number of hours per year. Big difference is how the hours are spread throughout the year. However I still take a week of vacation in the summer and winter - you just need to do a little planning for it.

My daily get moved daily in the summer and 1- weeks in the winter. All my portable fencing for sub-dividing paddocks gets set up on the week and winter feeding gets set up in October (corn, bale grazing). On a average day involves me rolling back some wire and letting the cows walk through.

If there is 90 or 180 cows walking through not much difference. The only time the 180 cows are more work is at processing or vaccinating or chasing them out of your neighbours field.

Fundamental reasons why cattle are a better fit. I don't have prime ag land, fit my schedule better, lower financial risk, and I have experience with them.

How many of you guys run sheep with cattle? Multi-species grazing shows environmental benefits and sheep are one of the few industries where demand out strips supply - therefore profitable. Very few people can be bothered because it's more work. Same arguement holds to why grain producers don't want cattle.

[greybeard]

Same story here in NE Sask. Anything that will grow a crop is going back o grain.
Grain is going through a technology and productivity evolution that we haven't seen since horses pulled plows. One man can seed 5000 acre by himself. Livestock can't compete for those acres.
Livestock go to the cheap feed or areas that are to risky to farm. Neither of those exist here and the livestock infrastructure is collapsing. You can't even buy ear tags within an hours drive.
If the market needs cattle from this type of area it will have to pay a lot more for them and it will take more than a short price spike.
Some say hobby outfits, both big and small supply the bulk of the cattle.

[SADIE]

Came in from sitting on the combine and really enjoyed the good points brought out on threads following this morning post. I can see that I am not alone in my thoughts and observations.

On the combine I listen to the news all day and read the commodity post at night as well. I will remain a MIXED FARMING OPERATION TO TRY TO SPREAD OUT RISK. "SURVIVAL ON THIS FARM".

Perfecto--Your comment is my same thought and age old but each time the pendulum swings back and forth the highs and lows seem to keep getting higher (unreachable) or low to the point of (No recovery).
What has to happen to stimulate a cow-calf recovery. The mixed family farm is still more effecent than the big corporate farms and ranches IMHO.

SMGrath--your comment that herds keep getting bigger and more keep exiting the cattle business I have heard for many years now. This is true but only to a point. When one looses the 10-15 smaller operations in an area and one gets a little bigger there is still a net loss of cow numbers.

The Outlook and Watrous areas we have watched all our lives being we are from these areas. The Outlook area has the irrigation and since the mid-70s one has seen many "outsiders" come in and are going to show the locals how to farm and how to irrigate and make big $$$. So many Alberta fortunes have gone broke over the years. The last major influence was the potato industry in this area that brought in the power house of IRVING OIL with CAVENDISH POTATOES. These people stood on my land and were trying to tell me what I should do and expand for them. It took only 7 years and they pulled out of the area.

The latest big movement of Albertans, BC and other investors coming in buying the Saskatchewan cultivation land, block it up and seed to grass one is going to watch very closely now. Right now it is the craze for growing canolas and cereals that are driving the land prices 25% higher than last years record highs. Unheard of land price escalations in the last 3 years. Lets see how long this former cultivation land which has just been fenced and seeded to grass will keep cows on it.

One good point is that I am hearing and reading that as Ottawa wants to download the PFRA pastures to the provinces at least they are following criteria that could help sustain some cow-calf industry. THis fall after take out there is meetings in this area with the present remaining patrons on input on how the province is looking at these lands.

[grassfarmer]

This chemical agriculture scares me. Was down in
Montana last month and went for miles past zero-till,
chemical treated grain crops and there was not a bird
to be seen. No songbirds, no magpies not even
ravens, crows or hawk types - looks to me like there
wasn't anything for them to live on.
I see the natural progression on the prairies being
Hutterite expansion - they seem to have a system
that works better than most and the desire to keep on
in agriculture.
The biggest thing that scares me is if Dr Huber's
predictions on the glyphosate sterilizing the soils
comes true - it would wipe out modern farming as it
is practised today. I saw an end dump semi load full
of empty chemical jugs at the local colony - that's a
lot of poison.

[grefer]

Maybe I am wrong but didn't alot of this not really get accelerated when government decided ethanol was the way to go.I am getting to detest the direction agriculture has gone in my lifetime.For those farming huge amounts of land with gps systems and auto steer on their new or relatively new tractors,sprayers,combines etc.etc.,it all seems great and if you suggest otherwise you are a fool.Would farming look so great without the subsidies through the ethanol industry and support programs like agristability etc?I don't think so.We decided to go organic in 2005 because we felt we were losing control of the direction our farm was going.Are there problems with weeds?Yes.Are there challenges with keeping tillage reduced?Yes.Can I grow as much grain per acre as the large grain producer?Not usually.Do I feel there are solutions to these problems if we fricking look?Absolutely.The wonderful thing about it is that livestock are a strong component of the solution.We all win....except of course those selling all the imputs to todays conventional farmers.

[kato]

You're not wrong. You're spot on. Things have been changing in agriculture for a hundred years, but I think there have been more changes during our time than all the others added up together.

When we started out all our neighbours were farming. Mostly mixed, medium sized farms. Now we have five grain outfits farming the land of at least sixty families. Most of the cattle and all of the hogs are gone. Even some of the former "big" farmers are gone. They've been replaced by the "really big" farms. How massive can farms get? With the cost of equipment and inputs, how large does it have to be to make it work?

How hard does a person have to work to make a living?

And how hard does a person want to work???

[kato]

Just checked out Harry Siemen's blog. There's some pretty scarey stuff there about what's happening to the hog producers.

Is this our future?

Is there anything we can do to prevent this happening to us?

Here's the website link.
http://www.siemenssays.com/blog/
The interview with CJOB is worth listening to.

Here's a video.
http://www.siemenssays.com/blog/8497.html


It all just kind of gives you a sick feeling to hear it. Deja Vu....