Mr. Martin?

[cheetah]

Cowman and Kato

I agree with your statement 100%. I couldn't have expressed myself better.
Those people south always think they and their products are the "best", but when problems arise, they always blame others. Who better to blame then their neighbor Canada!

[cheetah]

I think money is not the solution to the problem we cattlefarmers are facing. I believe this problem started quite a time ago, when the grain prices went down. The government officials were telling farmers to "diversify" in order to make farms profitable. Most grain-farmers added cattle. They had good price. So this went on and on. I even heard that in SK the Ag Minister told the grain-farmers to get into cattle not long ago. Now with this BSE problem and the export for the USA closed and our border to the USA closed, the problem just gets worse. I believe there are way too many cattle here (and maybe even in the States). But by paying us 10-20 cents for cull cows we can hardly reduce our herds. Rather, the number of animals will increase, because many people bred their old cows for another year. Of course there are those "packers" who are exploiting the situation. I guess there should be a reduction plan put in place so that some farmers could reduce or, the ones who want, even retire decently. And also Canada should not rely only on the USA, they should try to open other markets. For that they should not use hormones and antibiotics. I also think that by exporting to other countries, they would even credate jobs here.

[cowman]

Cheetah: You have hit the nail right on the head about the grain prices! When they killed the Crow they finished off the traditional grain farmer. Lets face it we have to export. We just are not capable of eating all we can produce in this country. When our federal government decided to throw our grainfarmers to the international wolves we HAD to diversify into cattle and hogs. If they had bit the bullet and decided to spend the money to compete with the American and European subsidies, then we would still have a viable export grain market. Instead they played the global hero and not only refused to subsidize but also scrapped the CROW because the Americans thought it was unfair!
It worked for awhile. Hog barns and feedlots went up and every man and his dog got into cows. Now we were exporting beef and pork instead of barley and wheat. But we competed too well and American farmers are not too keen on being outdone!
Thus began a long list of actions by America to limit our access. BSE was a godsend for them!
We made some fundamental mistakes in this country. Now we are paying the price and it will be a huge price! First to the beef farmer, with the hog farmer not far behind. Then to the grain farmer. Then to all the various businesses that rely on agriculture! And our government continues to play the fiddle while Rome burns!

[kato]

That's just it..if we go out of cows, what do we go into? Start up a bunch of parks and invite tourists? Maybe we could charge Americans to come up and shoot gophers.

There is not one viable form of agriculture left in this country, except dairy and chickens, and I think if I had enough money to buy quota, I'd be sitting on a beach somewhere instead!

What is it going to take to fix this mess?

[cheetah]

kato, you are right. Beware if you go into chickens, you may lose before you start with the "birdflu". And with milk I don't think it is very good either. They always want the cows to produce more and more milk, although there is too much milk available. To get out of this mess, it would not only require the Canadian government to take action, but all governments world wide. We should go back with our farming practices just a few years. Get out of the "geneticaly modified crops, vegetables, etc.", not use hormones and antibiotics (last ones only for what they are meant). This means that we would be more "organic" kind of farmers. This way we will help protect our enviroment and produce healthy food. And our INPUTP RICES have to be in accordance with our PRODUCE-PRICES. This means there would be more farmers working less land and having less animals, but doing things better. Even maybe we could employ people. Today a calf is born one day and a year and a half later it should weigh 1200 lb to be slaughtered. Why do we want to alter nature. We cannot (for now) have a human baby born today and 5 years later it should be grown up, educated and able to work. The problem is that politicians want to keep food at affordable prices (although some are already too expensive) for the population, because if people get hungry they go against the government. But politicians do no worry about our inputcost, so we are told to produce "more" "thoretically more efficient" and "faster" too. But this philosophy also will come to an end if our inputcost continue growing. They are heading towards "industrialized farms", with which they will poison people in the long term. Since they are using all kinds of chemicals and modified things to make everything grow faster and under any weather condition. The world is very well planed for everything to be grown and raised, for example why would someone want to grow oranges in Canada, when they grow easily in other parts of the world? Furthermore I think if every farmer produces in the right way and not excesive amounts, there would not be problems. There are enough people to feed.

[cowman]

kato: I actually believe there are some forms of agriculture that are viable but they are basically "niche" deals and we can't all get into them or we'd flood the market.
And it helps if you are near a major market for these products. The pleasure horse market is strong. I just talked to a guy yesterday who sold small square bales for $4.25 at the local auction! I know of one couple who boards horses at $80/month year round.
Talk to some market gardeners. If they peddle their produce around at the farmers markets they are clearing in that $4000- $5000/acre range. Berries can be lucrative if you have a market. Some of the berry farms claim up to $12,000/acre! Now I suspect that is fairly wishful thinking?

[cowman]

Oh and Kato I forgot the number one agricultural product in Canada! Dope!
Why one acre would return more than 5000 acres of wheat! And you don't need no John Deere products to grow it!

[Horse]

Cowman you missed the best of all I was talking to a couple of er ladys the outer day and they told me they could make 50 thousand a yr off of all things hair and there is no seed to buy and you can make it off a piece no bigger than your hand now dont that beat all I havent figured out the marketing yet but when I do I will be in tall clover .

[cowman]

Ha Ha! Careful Horse, you're close to getting banned! That sort of thinking doesn't go over very well with the politically correct, you know?

[boone]

They say the worst part about gold mining is claim jumpin