Santa came!

[grassfarmer]

Good points from both of you - I agree that one overall voice representing the huge majority of family farms would be ideal. But how do we get there? Wild Rose purports to champion the family farm, as does the NFU but the reality is these are both tiny groups of bright, vocal individuals - no different to BIG-C or many of the other small producer groups. The problem lies not with those of us involved in organisations but rather those that take no part in any organisation. The people passionate about our farming industry all push as hard as we can in our own "favourite" organisations but realistically there is probably too much history behind the different groups for them all to merge into one.
I assume the majority of family farmers in Western Canada don't support any group. Perhaps that is where we should start? try to get every producer interested and working for some change - whether it be NFU, WRAP, BIG-C even ABP - perhaps that should be our New Year resolution?

[cowman]

Excuse my ignorance of what Wild Rose basically stands for, and give everyone here a quick run down on what their policies stand for? Were they the old Unifarm organization?
It seems to me when I was a kid growing up farmers were a lot more involved in various groups? I know my Dad used to go to Alberta Wheat pool meetings and was a lifetime member of the Western Stockgrowers. I wonder why we basically have little use for most organizations today?
I kind of like the ideas of BIG C and how they seem to be a grassroots organization, rather than an "old boys club" where the same old guys preach to the faithful. I do believe they are stirring the pot and getting some attention. I suspect Ostercamp has a pretty realistic down to earth evaluation of the whole situation. I also support the idea of a producer funded cow plant through a levy...with some reservations! It is a necessity to bring some sanity and fairness back into the marketplace, but I truly believe that once that is accomplished it should be sold to a private concern.
I believe that any company that is run by "committee" or "government" or whatever, will eventually turn out to be nothing more than a dog...good for the boys running the show...not so good for the people paying the bills. With a private owner the incentive is there to make a buck and not just freeload off the system. I still believe in free enterprize and individual incentive.

[WRAPper]

Good Morning a reply to cowman and a morning rant before I go feed cows and haul wheat for the day. The best place for info on Wild Rose is on WRAP's web site wrap.ab.ca, they are a continuation of Unifarm to a degree. If you have more question or want to talk to someone there call them the number is 1-888-616-6530. Something I believe strongly that not enough people admit to themselves is is that a organization must reflect the members that it has and if you don't like what a group is doing the best way to change the policies and direction is to get involved and working to change them but that takes a lot of hard work,strong will, heartache and often abuse(of yourself).
Back many years ago there was the western stock growers and Unifarm both powerful groups and rather than the members working together and changing the groups to reflect the changing face of agriculture we've taking the easy way out which is the wrong way. So now we have between 50-100 groups representing different segments issues and policies.
A group should represent the democractic will of the members and all members should accept that and work within the group, a group should not represent policies blindly and its vision should be ever changing to reflect the changing nature of both the industry and what the majority of the members want the industry to be.
If back in the day enough members of the western stockgrowers then or now ABP had wanted beef to go to supply mangement(they had the chance) thats the way the industry should go(not that I would support that) If enough members of Unifarm in the day had wanted the CWB monopoly taken away that should have been the policy.
After being involved in some of the commodity groups the biggest thing I have come away with is the groups are just a reflection of the involved members not always the ones who aren't members or involved in the organization.
Its truly no different than the local lions club do you think they are putting their efforts into projects that they should -are you a member and do you take a leadership role on those organizations? same thing. But in order to be chosen to leadership of these groups enough members or people that support you must be mebers and involved too.. don't go off and start another group if the lions aren't building a ball diamond like you think they should join the lions and have the people that agree with you be members too. simple but we just don't have thick enough skins to do it(or enough sense). Welcome to the independant operators that we as producers are, our ideas keep our own operations together and we feel pretty disgusted when those other dumb operators don't see our brilliance. We just choose to forget that they all have operations too and likely have thoughts of their own and they probably work too. It's not always the loudest voice leading the way but the one that makes the most sense to the most people(or members in this case)
RP keep selling and refining and listening to people when they talk rationally to you about the BIG -C proposal. I tend to agree with Cowman the thought of another wheat pool (cow pool?) makes me nervous for exactly the reasons stated by cowman. I agree fully we need more capacity and WRAP will be presenting thoughts on acheiving this to Doug Horner in a meeting on the 5th and again hopefully when he speaks to the seminar in Nisku on the 6th. There is nothing simple about getting us out of the mess we are in we let it happen slowly and quietly over 25 years we are not going to solve it I'm afraid in 12 months if we try too we better accept there is going to be some big mistkes and some casulties (though in war there is the term acceptable losses)
Have a great day all.

[ianben]

Interesting thread
However multi nationals are global!
10,000 acres, Alberta,even Canada alone can any of these run fast enough not to be eaten.
Wheat board might get you a small premium but not a realistic price.

Can any group of farmers ever become organiezed enough to fix prices and control supply?

I will not suport small groups which are run by part-timers bringing farmer mentality to this global market.

I would love to see an independant internet based priceing and supply management sevice for farmers round the world.
An organization which would price as a multi national on ability to pay and advise on production.

I see your condemnation of packers as unfair when you have a closed border yet continue to rear more calves.
A multi natioal would have halved prodution the day the border closed.

Unless we can achieve the ability to produce the quantity and quality require we will always be weak sellers and no NFU red rose CWB subsidy system will change the law of supply and demand.

[rkaiser]

ianben. I would ask you first, what is farmer mentality. Are not, what you call globally run companies run by people? Are you saying that you and I are lesser people because we are farmers. In my mind farmer mentality is practical and ethical, and not afraid of a challenge. What is farmer mentality to you?
Second, I wonder if your wealth of knowledge could be an asset to a group trying to make a difference, or are your comments saved for tearing down rather than building.
If you think that producers should have halved production after the border closed, why were you not out in the public pushing that thought, and trying to make it happen?
Your comment on supply managment seem even farther from the current monopoly driven situation than NFU or Unifarm, yet you want to run them down as well.
Is farmer mentality all about blasting off negatives, ianben, and then sitting back and taking a screwing from the unethical profit driven packers? Most of the producer groups making an effort are trying to avoid more control, whether by government or your precious multinationals.
By the way, these global mutinational brain units you talk of. Are they not simply groups of people. Don't think that it takes rocket science to produce and then market beef. If thinking people like yourself and others on this site, could get together and set up a structure to operate under, and then hire managers out from under the Mutinationals noses like Xcel has done, I belive we could change the industry for the better of all cattle producers in Canada. Besides that, we also have a couple of very competent producer funded groups in place already that are doing a hell of a job marketing beef for Tyson, and Cargil. Do you think they could maybe help out this pathetic group of farmers you speak of?

[lakenheath]

As we are all aware, it is no mystery that a strong marketing plan is a must on a successful farming operation these days. What I would like to see in this dicussion room is more marketing talk and less politics. I am not knocking TOM4CWB, but basically all he bring to the board is politics. There is a place for him and his ideas, but i don't think a marking discussion board is the place. We have brilliant marketing resources in Lee, Charlie, and our own experience. We could learn so much from each other and make smarter marketing decisions if that was the focus. There is too much sifting through political debate to make this chat room and resource library for true commodity marketing. You can debate politics till the cows come home, but the bottom line in the your farming operation won't change. Let's get our focus on track. Maybe agriville can set up a "Political Room". Marketing is one the most posted rooms and I believe TOM4CWB is taking advantage on it and using it a campaigning room. Move on TOM, or if you are to stay, stick to marketing.

[greybeard]

Check out page 4 of this newsletter as it is relavent to this thread. It realy hammers home the "who runs the fastest " theory.
http://www.gardinerangus.com/pdfs/GAR_nsSpring03.pdf

[ianben]

Farmer mentality in my mind is that I worked hard to produce X somebody should buy it and give me a profit.
If this has not happened then someone else must be to blame and we each have our own favorit candidate who is responsible.

I have gone through BSE in UK and feel for you guys but you must have seen BSE devestate beef farmers across Europe as country after country had positives.

This is the kind of information I would like to see commodity by commodity the risks we taking. In your case the effect border closure would have. The new situation in terms of numbers and price. Information for farmers in Brazil that US will be looking for BSE free beef and a price to aim for. Information for Canadians that a market Brazil was suppling may be looking for beef and a price to aim for.
A request to reduce sales to maintain price on over produced commodities.

I hope I do bring new ideas and not just negatives.
To bringing these ideas to being needs the marketing and pricing department of a multinational and computer literate farmers.
Immopssible or the new Ebay?