AFSC and AFRP II

[grassfarmer]

Once again I'm using the angry face on a post about AFSC - are these people completely useless or am I just unlucky?
It seems any time I have contact with them there is a problem. I called today to inquire where my AFRP 11 payment was as I recall f_s saying he got his a while back. "Oh" says the lady " you didn't send back your statement of compliance" Err, yes I did actually, the same day I received it - back in November.
"Did you get a receipt for it" she asks.
No, I said - were you issuing receipts?
"No but you can get receipts from the post office"
Yeah, I guess I could have send it registered mail too but why should I incur the expense? There was no requirement to send it registered mail and letters we mail very, very seldom fail to get delivered. When they do it's usually AFSC or another Government office. In other words they lose or fail to record the information they get sent to them - yet they like to blame the producer.
My biggest concern with this whole ALMA/ALMS thing is that AFSC are involved with it - they have shown by their handling of CAIS that they couldn't organize a p@$%-up in a brewery so why are they getting more work?
Rant over - these people really annoy me though and I would like to see them held accountable for their poor and sloppy service.

[rkaiser]

Still a little hard to take the part about the second 1/2 of the payment. Talked with lots of producers and each one felt that the original proposal was 1/2. I certainly did when I went through the process. In fact the government would not have sent such an apologetic letter along with the second payment which was about 1/3 of the 1/2 that we were all expecting. They did not expect such a response they said. They did not know how many numbers were out there. HMMMM.... Makes you wonder. How many cows are left in this province or this country if the government doesn't have a clue. I know that we should never bank on government assistance, but promises are promises. Accountability????? Maybe someone should sue them for accountability.... Wait a minute.... we are already and we got em over the ropes. How are all of your letters to the feds and meetings with your MP's going. Have you asked them to settle with us out of court on the BSE class action suit yet????

[per]

Kind of an interesting reaction to the part II payment. What I find curious is that many don't want the government to collect or otherwise have any information about them and then complain when the government doesn't have information about them. For a host of reasons many have not participated in the programs that are the avenue for the government to collect said info. Then when a program comes out that they would like to participate in they are surprised that the information is not a the finger tips of the government. Right from the get go the overall number was announced and part II was going to be the remainder. Many vocal producers stated that they would not participate. It seems the have. There were also others that were not in Cais and other programs that were a surprise. Add all these factors a voila the pool was diluted. I just read the BCCA letter and responses. They are asking for what we received. I guess it is always greener on the other side.

[smcgrath76]

Payment #2 we were told they had not recieved. I completed mine and faxed it in the same day I got it. Also did Mom and Dad's. Unfortunately I don't print out fax reciepts (saving trees) so when they said they don't have it, I should send it in again and I might get a cheque. Based on neighbours, it is a lot of pain vfor very little gain. Quite frankly they are so far behind where we are at on our operation I think it is a joke.

[farmers_son]

That money is needed... I am sorry you have had to wait so long. I have talked to lots of producers who are still waiting.

The cheque I got was only 40% of what it was supposed to be, apparently because there was a limited amount of money, $300 million, in the pot and the bulk of that pot was paid out with the first cheque. Which leaves me wondering about the people who have not been paid their second cheque. Did the government hold back money to pay people like Grassfarmer or has all the $300 mnillion been paid out and if you have not got your cheque by now then too bad. And if Gorgeous George Groeneveld held some of the $300 million back how did he know how much to hold back and should we expect another cheque if there is money left over because people realized any cheque they might receive would be too small to be worth the bother.

I am thinking I would like to see an accounting of that $300 million. Who got it, who did not get it and how much is left if any. After all this money was not a gift. I was promised money from the Province of Alberta in return for me performing a service to the industry. Then Gorgeous George Groeneveld pays me 40% of what he promised and it seems others got nothing at all. Seems like a scam to me. We need a something like the Better Business Bureau that we can call when we get scammed by unscrupulous Government Ministers.

[rcf]

Well, I feel bad for those who only recieved part of what they were supposed to get and worse for those who didn't get anything yet. However most other provinces got nothing. We are stuck dealing with CAIS which pays zero.

[smcgrath76]

Don't feel too bad. The extra regulatory burden in AB and the availability of 0% cash advances will see the feeding industry grow in SK and probably MB. The problem there is that they are dependent upon US slaughter capacity.
Not an easy solution, but we will see contraction of the industry in AB.

[grassfarmer]

That is interesting Sean - you faxed in two declarations on the day you got them and I mailed mine in and all disappeared. What a strange coincidence - or is it? did the management at AFSC even have the instructions out to staff to expect return of these documents in the first week?
Your fax machine gets blamed and Canada Post gets blamed in my case.
In the 8 years I have been in business in Canada I have never had a bill failed to get delivered to me by Canada Post, I have never paid a bill and had it go missing either, in fact the only mail mishaps we have had apart from international mailings have been documents sent to AFSC and Agriculture Canada.
I don't buy it for a minute - I think they messed up again and have lost a bunch of declarations and producers seem likely to be the ones to foot the bill.
I am told that there is a "second pool" (more like a puddle) of @$3 million which may or may not be distributed to those of us deemed "latecomers" (despite being the first to return our completed forms)
For anyone in this position I suggest you write to Betty Herron, Appeals Committee chief at AFSC and explain your case. I have no intention of getting bumped into this second pool because of a mistake that was not mine. I have age verified from day one and sent the form back to prove compliance the day I got it. I do not intend to leave a cheque of presumably between $1000 and $2000 on the table because of someone else's incompetence.

My previous experience of AFSC and CAIS payments I made by internet banking were never satisfactorily resolved either. I payed only to be told continually that it hadn't arrived yet which was holding up our APP application. Eventually I made a second payment. On studying bank statements it became clear that the sum had been drawn from my account twice - but it took a bank trace (which I had to pay for) to prove that both had been cashed and in fact the first had been credited to the wrong account. I only recently paid a 2008 CAIS Agristability fee - nearly a year after the payment deadline, again because AFSC didn't get around to sending out the invoice.

It seems incompetence is endemic in this organization from top to bottom.
An emailed complaint to Brad Klak, President and Managing Director of AFSC 6 months ago has never been replied to either - I guess Hotmail must have lost that one!
One interesting thing I did discover about the AFRP 11 program is that there has been a lot of fraud going on. Apparently random audits have shown that a lot of people signing the declaration hadn't in fact age verified or registered their premis ID. I am surprised that it took a random audit to show this - the only thing of relevance on the compliance form was the producers CCIA pin number - do you mean these weren't all checked out prior to issuing payment? I would have thought that a basic requirement of due diligence from AFSC.

[smcgrath76]

I can tell you that we are very pleased we went to FCC with our farm lending and have little to do with AFSC.
As for CAIS, I think we are going to opt out. CAIS may work for some but it has done very little to manage risk in our business and has basically resulted in an accounting bill for the last several years. Our risk management involves pasture insurance, an extremely low cost of production and working on the value added side of our business. As well, we are working on a hedging strategy that will hopefully help.

[grassfarmer]

Similar sentiments here - one substantial payout from CAIS in 03 with zero since, seemingly zero prospect of future payments (and we are not making huge profits). We quit with the accountant bills a while ago and started doing our own. Never had anything to do with AFSC money lending. Really like the Advance Payments Program (APP) to cashflow the business.

[farmers_son]

In my opinion, it is not an AFSC thing. It is an ALMA thing.

These two payments were part of the ALMStrategy and Gorgeous George Groeneveld's vision on how to control not only Alberta cattle producers but the entire Canadian cattle industry.

No one should be surprised if it has all turned out to be a gong show. In fact the problems with the tiny second AFRP II cheque pales in comparison to the total cost of ALMA. Millions and millions of dollars (I would hazard a guess over $100 million) have been diverted into the Gorgeous George producer control fund (aka ALMA and ALMS) and absolutely nothing has come out. If that money had gone directly to cow calf producers we would at least have something in our pockets instead of mandatory this and compulsory that and little else to show for it.

We were supposed to have results by now. We were supposed to have our money by now too.

ALMS and ALMA has really served as an excuse to do nothing while the industry continues to lose producers and cows. ALMA has been a total flop.

Now if cattle producers owned drilling rigs we would be getting some attention. Maybe what we need is more PRECISION in the cattle industry.

[smcgrath76]

I thought AFSC held your CAIS account as security against the APP program loans?
As for ALMA, well that is best left unsaid. Something about money for nothing or is that nothing for the money?
I suppose ALMA singlehandedly resulted in the dropping $ which is masking a tremendous drop in the demand and actual price for cattle.
We still are not good at adding VALUE.