$18000 a year!!!

[lesm]

Read yesterdays Star Phoenix and it showed all the average saleries of most occupations in Saskatchewan. We're at the bottom of the list, behind Mcdonald's workers at $18000/yr. Time to email your MP's and MLA's and demand a bigger subsidy. Ask your kids to buy you a bigger mailbox for Christmas.

[Fransisco]

Well maybe if more people could count to ...<b>twelve...</b>

[DogPatch]

6 out of 10 were Pro Athletes, none of them on Canadian teams. Only 1 was involved in crop inputs or agriculture (indirectly)

Keep trucking your kids to hockey practice!

[bucket]

Lets see.

750000 tonnes times 39.4 equals 29,550,000 bushels divided by the required 5000 bushel lot equals 5910 tests at 105 bucks a pop equals 620,550 buckaroos for the labs. Indefinitely.

Someone check my math. I must have missed something.

[parsley]

Now,be a smart farmer and look ahead:

1. The smart kids flick the iron(ferris/ferric) gene into the 888Event flax in Aug/2011

2. The smart kids also flick the selenium gene into the 666 Event flax Jan/2013.

3. A 90yr old geriatric dies in 2016, because he inadvertantly ate iron in his flax, and he was told to avoid iron.(Don't laugh. McDonald serve hot coffee too hot, right?)

4. Gene testing found the 888 crossed with the 666 in the field,(damned open pollination).

5. What kind of liability insurance will producers buy from the gene companies to cover producer liability actions? What's a fair premium? Pars

[bucket]

Yeah lets keep developing these high class grains so the world can shit on canada and buy cheap grain. GM has done that and it really worked out well for them.

Same thing with developing specialty durum. Absolutely marvelous especially when the cwb has not moved 1 bushel of the 09 crop.

[checking]

Bucket, are you absolutely sure that each 5000 bushel lot has to have a test completed. A Viterra rep/marketer suggested that this was a recommended number, but not a requirement. Is he correct?

A hundred dollars is one thing. A hundred times 20 tests to begin with, times a career, is quite another. It will cause me to adopt "the my choice principle" that "my first loss will be my smallest." I will leave this market to those who don't object to the I'll pay to test model, and hope that the EU instead pays through the nose for a dwindled supply.

It will be really interesting to see the flax acre projections for 2010.

[hobbyfrmr]

I may be way out to lunch. Fast and rough math would indicate better than that. ie. 1200 acre farmer 400 canola, 40 bu/ac X$8.00= $320.00/acre. cost $250.00/acre. Net $70/acre X 400ac =$28,000. 400 oats, 100 bu/acre X $2/bu = $200/acre. Cost $175/acre. Net $25/acre X 400 = $10,000. Wheat 50 bu/acre X $5.00/bu = $250.00. Cost $200/acre. Net $50/acre X 400 = $20,000. Total net on the farm= $58,000. I do not know the real income tax rate, say 42% leaves the farmer with $33,640.00 to live. These days most farms are larger than 1200 acres and more efficient so I presume more profit to live. My guess is they are in between and carpenter and barber.

[nicolaas]

you are forgetting that you actually have to replace your equipment, and you have land payments, debt financing. Plus to get decent yeilds like that for more than a year or two in a row requires rain.

[Hopperbin]

Some farmers forget land payments are profit. And machinery after depreciated is also profit. I think a lot of farmers could retire much earlier than they do, don't really know what they have.
They purchase newer machinery because they don't want to pay tax, so that they can make only 18,000 a year. I know bad hopper.

[checking]

You'd have a better point hopper if depreciation rates on equipment were closer to 100% than the the first year rates of 10% and 15%. Tax avoidance through those purchases is a quick road to negative income territory, not an $18,000 income.

I don't feel like purchasing 10 lbs of canola seed/acre to save an $18,000 government installment payment that's due at the end of the month, either.

I'll happlily pay the tax, just to skew lesm's reported farmer salary!

[DogPatch]

Hobbyfarmer, doesn't look like you have any livestock either, nor kids in school etc.

That 18000 was pretty much bang on for us in 2006 and averaged about that for the last 6 years.

[hobbyfrmr]

Yes, I have just started my family activities. 2 kids in school,karate and dance and a baby. I try to farm 1500 acres. I operate 23 year old equipment that runs well, thats part of the reason why I forgot depreciation. So, my thoughts are, run older equipment, do everything I can to pay for my land. Long term I can either sell or rent out for retirement revenue.

[food4u]

I got my results this afternoon.Sample was delivered on Nov 10th. Three phone calls later--- had to leave message as no person answers the phone. Results were negative-- west side of Lake Diefenbaker.

[food4u]

I got my results this afternoon.Sample was delivered on Nov 10th. Three phone calls later--- had to leave message as no person answers the phone. Results were negative-- west side of Lake Diefenbaker. Now i can sell flax-- missed a 9.00 dollar market in Moose Jaw. Thank you to the Triffid growers.