NFU crazy, or am I missing something?

[gustgd]

and parsley. You know better it's a vote of people who've applied for permit books, not farmers.

[grassfarmer]

Pars, You wish to circumvent the CWB and sell for a premium. Fair enough but remember without the CWB you will still have to circumvent the corps, the middleman, the establishment. That is the reality I think too many of the CWB opposers don't think about. It's easy to say we can sell to Cargill today and we are happy with their prices. Consider that they might be buying you off to get your support.
It happened in Eire when beef processing plants put the prime cattle auctions out of business by offering an extra penny a pound for farmers to deliver direct to the plant. It took years but the proud boast of the meat plants is they broke the auction system and it only cost them a penny. Prime cattle prices there are usually now the lowest in the EU - because there is no competition.
It happened in the UK when the Milk marketing boards lost their monopoly - milk plants offered premiums to producers who helped them break the monopoly. In the decade after they succeeded in getting rid of the monopoly all milked traded at 2/3 of the promised premium price and 3/4 of the price it had been when the monopoly was in place.
I laugh every time I read about the wonder of the "free market" system.
Look at Cargill and their beef processing facility in Alberta. They received AB Government funding to locate and build at High River in the first place. During the BSE episode they received more Government funding to expand and modernise their plant to handle the larger numbers of cattle. At the same time the same AB Government was telling beef producers that they "would not get into the beef business" even to provide bridge financing to help producers build their own packing plants. If this had happened we could have introduced more competition into the marketplace and raised live cattle prices. They have been allowed to take over other businesses and further reduce competition always being rubber stamped by the competition bureau. Just before Christmas Cargill got another substantial Government handout to help "operational efficiencies" at their plant.
What is free market about this? You couldn't create a more controlled anti-competitive trade environment if you wanted to. You have a system where the producer has been handicapped by their own Government in favor of an American corporation. And this is the model of the successful "free market" system you aspire to?

[parsley]

No matter the voters, my point was there were other conventional farmers voters could have selected if they didn't like organic.

So, my point was, there is no problematic difference between the organic candidate and the conventional candidate.

Farmers CAN work together if they are willing.

btw, gusty, INCOME

I took a hard look at net income. At gov't program-income.

Some drool over the vision there should be a couple of hundred "professional farmers at least over 50 quarters and recieving gov't bailouts. The rest should be bought out and sent packing.

It is a specific vision.

Are the farmers recieving massive continual annual gov't tax dollars via payments more rightful to be deemed a 'farmer' than a small farmer on no government programs? (I concede that the big scooper FEELS entitled)

Long term, which farmer is more sustainable? Valuable to community and country?

The sharp clean up pencils who have to quietly slide in and WRITE DOWN more debt AGAIN for the glitzy boys, tell me, the NET of farms without gov't dollars has been dismal.)

Does it boil down to :

The small independent who pays his own way vs the lobbying dependent with grandiose visions?

Why is the CWB still in existence?

As you well know, many of the seed growers have large acerages, but they vote for the continuation of the Wheat Board, because they themselves, bypass the Board via their special concessions with export permits. They uhold the staus quo and you should know it. Most would not blink an eye if an attempt was made to organize other grains the same way.... tie up bucket and burnt in regulation, but print their own canola export licenses.

Voting in this election was not the result of older permit bookers in Florida. Pars

[parsley]

You forget organics circumvented all of them, grassy.

So can grass fed beef if you have some faith in those you team up with. You are not a victim. You can steer the entire ship, if you should choose. Pars

[wd9]

As per a video post a while back on Agriville at least 70% of the organic food wasn't even organic. There will always be opportunity to sell anything to anyone for any price if marketing and sales have done their homework and know just how much cash can be seperated from the consumers hands. Case in point, $11 a pound canola seed is sold out before the previous crop is even harvested.

A local/urban farmer that is well vertically integrated will probably be the last one to go broke. I know one who sells slough grass bales as short as a small baler can make and sells them as dog grass for obscene profit. The only problem he has? Not enough sloughs. 1 dog owner buying a 5 inch bale for 10 bucks for their beloved pet does not see it as expensive. Growing 100,000 tonnes of wheat for minimal net is that much better or secure relying on exports to a broke US? Not likely. If the economy crashes that much, we are all severely screwed.

[gustgd]

Different policies for farms of different size

Dec 24 2010 The general manager of the Christian Farmers of Ontario, John Clement, writes a regular commentary. His latest is an interesting piece of how farm policy increasingly needs to pay attention to the “missing middle.” There are a growing number of small producers who have less than $100,000 in annual gross sales. Some of these producers serve a domestic market that wants to buy local. There are also a growing number of producers with gross sales of over $250,000 a year. However, there are fewer and fewer producers that would be considered middle size. That’s the “missing middle,” those between $100,000 and $250,000 in gross sales. It may make sense to design different farm programs for farms of different sizes. Some argue that small farms should receive public support through payments for environmental goods and services, while farms operating on a more commercial basis should get their support through income stabilization programs. We’ve never really figured out our farm policy objectives in this country, but the needs of a farm generating less than $50,000 a year in gross receipts are pretty different than one that’s generating more than $500,000. I’m Kevin Hursh.

[gustgd]

Notice John Clement calls under $100k gross, small farmers

My point all along is that the Urban "farmers"
don't count and if the NFU wants to diminish what we all do by calling every backyard gardener a farmer. Don't be surprised if every time you tell someone that you belong to the the NFU, people snicker.

[grassfarmer]

Why the tantrum Gustgd?

The NFU are only changing who qualifies to be a member of the NFU not who qualifies as a farmer. Don't know why that gets your knickers in a knot when you hate the organisation anyway.

I didn't steer the topic anywhere - it went organic v conventional at the point some of your friends started shouting abuse about Stewart Well's election.

Next time you are looking to recruit members for the western wheat growers maybe you could post it under that rather than an NFU heading?

[parsley]

My point is that by far, the majority of farmers are actually small farmers, for whatever reason.

There are some "small" farmers I know who can hardly feed themselves; conversley, there are some "small" farmers who can afford to buy anything.

Having ALL kinds of farmers is good for the country because it provides food security. It provides diversity. It provides population for small communities.

The NFU, I will say, have opened their arms to ALL kinds of farmers.

I don't belong to the NFU gusty, but I do have some commonality with them as I also do with the WCWG. I think farmers all over the world have commonality.

Nor are the NFU arrogant.


"Don't be surprised if every time you tell someone that you belong to the the NFU, people snicker."

You might want to ask yourself: When seed growers/farmers voted in the last election for Stu Wells, who is the epitomy of Mr. NFU himself, how many snickered? And at whom? Pars

[parsley]

An addendum especially for you, gusty:

The NFU have traditionally viewed agriculture through socialist eyes.

Closet socialists have been making ag policy for too long.

Look at the flax councils who hoisted the cost of flax testing on Joe Farmer, (who hadn't even heard of Triffid). wasn't that a kneejerk socialist action by seed growers, with a dose of fraud. "Spread the cost."

Watch what people do as opposed to what they SAY.

Most seed growers on the prairies are closet socialists and most likely actually vote for NFU policy, and would approve extending it to other grains. "Are they crazy", are you asking? I'll let you answer that one.

So the answer to your heading question is, 'Yes you are missing something gusty; in fact the whole issue must have sailed right over your head'

Unless of course, you are hiding in the germination closet. Pars

ps wd: Maybe the same 'scientists' (aka paymelots soibringyou whateveransweryouwant lab mutts) who told us to NOT eat eggs because they would kill us also did the o-report.

[parsley]

"Joe netted $5,900"

"Snicker. snicker," says gusty?

Numbers can also be what they are not:

Blue Bottle Fly Farms has a mother, a father and a son, Joe. All of them work on the farm and percentage the income to three people. Joe gets 20% because he also works off farm part time, in the basement, as an accountant. GGFfarms also 'hires' him to do their books year round, which is not included in his net farm income.

Income is divided into "partnerships"

Joe wants to farm in the worst way, but Mom and Dad are not ready to move off the farm yet, and Joe is still recuperating from a bad accident.

Is Joe a farmer or a snicker-farmer?

Is the farm a viable operation or a snicker-operation? Pars

[shaney]

Lets just call this decision by the NFU what it is.
Fundraising being masked by the BS of trying to
seem progressive.

Like I want an backyard chicken farmer who has two
head having an impact on ag policy. Urban farming
has a place and all this decision does is make the
NFU less relevant.

[parsley]

Your derision impacts upon your logic, shaney.

Ag committee in Ottawa meets with an organization listing 2,081 current, paid, members who grow agricultural products, abeit some with 2 items and some with 200,000 items.

Ag Committee also meet with an organization representing 21 paid barley growers, whose brochure for the coming annual meeting indicates their two day convention is sponsored by corporate dollars.

Ag Committee also meet with an organization representing 330 wheat producers who claim they represent the industry because they represent the most acres.

Ag Committee meets with One Herd Farm representing twentyfive thousand farmers and a herd of 2 million cows.

ONe organic garlic grower with 200 acres, pocketing 300K/yr net because he value adds on the farm, tells the lot of them, "Don't touch my junk."


Let's call it for what it is. LOL
Have you learned nothing? Or are you quite content with the status quo? Pars

[parsley]

hint hint, shaney:

1. Count possible votes
2. Measure probable fury. Pars

[jensend]

looks like some people don't want food producers having a say in agriculture. hmmm. maybe present day conventional farming isn't so much about food production any more.