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.

[grassfarmer]

No Farmers_son my problems have not been an ALMA thing they have been an AFSC thing. That outfit were useless before ALMA was ever conceived. It can only weaken ALMA to have them involved with it. Unlike you I am not complaining about the size of a second payment, merely that AFSC have screwed up again so that I risk not getting paid at all.

Sean,
Yeah, I think technically AFSC hold your CAIS account as security - but you can't get blood out of a stone! If we get zero CAIS payments year after year it'll take them a while to collect!
Seriously though the APP is an excellent program - if you use it sensibly. Rather like a credit card if used well it is an asset rather than a liability. I have no intention of defaulting and am enjoying having access to interest free loans that don't need repaid for anything from 18-30 months.

[farmers_son]

Well the fact remains that the AFRP II cheque was part and parcel of the ALMS announcement. And it is not AFSCs fault that the Government and ALMA do not even seem to know how many animals there are in the province or else ALMA cannot run a calculator. AFSC was merely stuffing envelopes.

Smcgrath76: I certainly agree with you when you say ALMA has done nothing and a huge amount of money has been funneled into that agency. Nothing for the money. There are concerns about conflict of interest within the ALMA board which is made up elitist self serving appointees. Not to mention internal dissent within the ALMA board resulting in some high profile firings.

We are adding value...we are just not getting paid for it. Part of the reason for that is too much mandatory, not enough common sense. Too much elite board, not enough grass roots producer. Too many appointees, not enough producer direction with ALMA.

Check out:
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$Department/deptdocs.nsf/all/com12203/$FILE/AB_Livestock_Strategy_Public_Doc_June_9_2008_FINAL .pdf

In that document, the 2008-2013 Implementation Plan it clearly says the AFRP II payment was to be decoupled, meaning decoupled from CAIS but tied to compliance with ALMS. The government tends to cleanse their web sites of embarrassing past remarks that highlight their lies and incompetence but they missed that one.

The ALMS vision can be read at:
http://alberta.ca/acn/200806/236915962D304-B91F-45D9-1E2802D0075952C0.html

The only part of the ALMS vision that has been achieved is the mandatory part that producers have to bow to. Not one other thing has been done and it is nearly a year. And in that year Alberta has lost how many cows and how many producers. I bet ALMA is not going to tell us those numbers. Not that they would even care.

[grassfarmer]

Farmers_son, you say "AFSC was merely stuffing envelopes." - indeed, and even that job seems beyond their limited capabilities. You can put any kind of spin you like on it serve your own ends but my problems were caused by AFSC not ALMA/ALMS.

It's easy to blame ALMA for everything but is there any truth in that?

You blame ALMA for lack of progress in a year but are happy to be part of an organization that spent the first 6 months fighting ALMA - how much more could have been achieved without the silly counter campaign by ABP?

You blame ALMA for losing cows and producers but isn't it the case that there was also a huge sell off of cows/reduction of producers the previous fall/winter?

It's easy to blame ALMA but what were the alternatives? You believe the ABP/CCA policies are correct - free and open trade with primarily the US, No government intervention - well how was that working for producers pre-ALMA? Not too well if I recall afterall these were your dream scenarios of marketing options but they were also what caused the big sell off of cows in the fall of 07. It seems you don't like to acknowledge the facts here - the model we had was broken and not working yet it continued to be the only option in your mind.

Last fall the NFU came out with a groundbreaking analysis of the current industry problems which easily explained why your chosen solutions were not, and could not, result in increased returns to producers. You said it was BS and the author was a BSer if I recall correctly.

Lets face it - for the last few years we were operating in a vacuum devoid of leadership or any new ideas emminating from CCA/ABP. ALMA is an attempt to change the status quo - time will tell whether it bears fruit, I for one am prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. Since January VJV, Ponoka have sold a lot of cattle through their "Canada Gold" sales so hopefully these cattle earned a premium for the sellers and will continue to do so as they work their way though the production chain. Canada Gold is the type of program that ALMA seeks to encourage so good luck to all involved.
You may not like ALMA farmers_son but I have yet to see the CCA/ABP solutions that are any better.