I still don't understand........

[leland]

The acreage payment could have easily been administered more fairly without a lot of beuracracy. These so called forms being mailed out will nearly all have to be reviewed as acreages and anges as nearly all farms have changes in crops on a year to year basis. In most area's farms constantly plow acres down, seed new acres to grass, rent or give up additional land, so for the program head to claim "it was easiest this way since anyone who has the same acres as last year will simply check a box". The program most certainly should have been a per cow payment on grazing and forage acres and this would have equalled out discrepancies. A simple mode of action should have been use of the tax forms to produce dollar figures for puchased and sold calves which would be reconciled with sales reciepts . The net from sold minus purchased calves would equal home raised thus the number of productive cows and a per cow payment figure. I have past experience with audits on the past Crow Benefit and Tripartite programs and can assure you we did far more indepth audits in little time. Personally I would rather wait for money from an equitable program than get a small amount now because it is quick and convenient. We pay these civil servants to administer these programs and lets put them to the task. As far as us all packing up and moving to Ontario in the face of a 1 in 10 generations drought we will perservere. Thats why we are in Alberta, home of the wealth and strong, because we will survive. All we want is eaual treatment from our gavernment and we will continue to outproduce the rest of this country.

[crazeeakerz]

Perhaps because the Prairies and Ontario are so geographically far apart there is a lack of knowledge and understanding of some people for the problems of others. A neighbor of ours is trying to sell his cattle herd and has advertised in Ontario. One caller asked him how far Alberta was from his home. It unfortunate, but true. Having said this I certainly wish to applaud and thank the many Ontario farmers who came to aid of Western producers with the Hay West campaign. Some people just know what's going on.

[crazeeakerz]

I am a 29 year old farmer that has had a of farm job in the past but on june 17 2002 quit my job because my 48 year old dad died from a heart attack and 14 months earlier my mom died at 46 yers old from brain cancer. I know that if my dad was still alive he would not have been able to survive this year. My dad had over $400,000.00 in life insurance and we will see about 5,000.00 of this. My brother who is getting married in april farms with me. This is a hell of a bad year and to hold on to the cattle we are selling off our 60 farrow to finish hogs just to feed the cattle. This is a tough year but i would not trade what i have here in alberta to live any where else in the world. We just don't know how lucky we have it until we travel to other places in canada. This is a set back that we alll will never forget. We hopefully will never be caught again with our pants down. This means a good carry over of feed and straw.We are not invincable but in good years we can prepare ourselves more.This is a hard lesson for myself in a already hard year. We are now just in survival mode and hopefully will see another year.You must amitt that alberta is one of the best places in the world to live.

[cow-patty]

Amen Kenry,

[cswilson]

15444- u said something very interesting right at start about your feeder co-op-and hoew spending 10-15 c
ents a pound extra doesn't bother them-
is there something we don't know. Out here with borrowed money we tend to watch those things.