single desk comments 4 yrs on in aust

[wilagro]

Parsley is quite a precious gem...a real keeper.

[oneoff]

Sarcasism seems most powerful when the subject matter is small or cute; and not when the sarcasm is dealing with larger serious matters. Anon.

[farmaholic]

Wilagro:
"Parsley is quite a precious gem...a real keeper."

Like a diamond:

-Kimberlite, extracted from the depths of the earths bowels.
-The ore yields a rough diamond.
-Till skillfully sculpted and polished.
-Only then revealing its true beauty and brilliance.
-With only a couple of minor imperfections, not even visible to the naked eye, to keep her humble.

[chuckChuck]

Weber and oneoff, regardless of the CWB debate, the trend to larger and larger farms is occurring world wide. Farm margins are being squeezed by high input cost and low commodity prices.

Why focus only on blaming the CWB? Without the CWB there will be further consolidation and less choice.

For many farms the only way to survive has been to increase in size, or work off the farm. Take a look at many small farm communities. If they don't have another source of jobs or wealth they are dying. Is this what you want?

Do you think having only a few 50,000 acre farms is good for rural communities? If you want to blame the CWB for causing the decline of agriculture then go ahead if that makes you feel better.

If you think that investors and corporations owning the land as an investment and renting the land back to farmers is good for farmer independence then you should be happy with the trend.

If you like the vertical integration of the seed, chemical companies and marketing options you must be happy with less choice and control.

Walmart likes to dominate the retail market. They make sure to kill the competition as soon as possible. They tell suppliers what to do and what they will pay. The scale of their operation is so large mom and pop suppliers don't have a chance. They use a few loss leaders to get you in the door and the charge alot for less price sensitive products. Alot of their products are lower quality crap. They pay their workers poorly.

If you think Walmart is a great place and good for your local economy and community you have been Walmarted.

You and your kids will enjoy working for agricultural Walmarts of the world.

[charliep]

So you can't make a business for the CWB based on the value it brings
farmers bottom lines but you try too make political and social case
for the CWB.

The changes you talk about around happening all over the world
based on I would argue mechanization. Farms will be sized based on
what one operator can do in a day. When I was a kid a million years,
farm were a section, tractors 70 horsepower and drills 12 feet.
Today, grain farms 5 sections, tractors 350 horse power and low
disturbance seeders 50 feet (you put in the real numbers). The reality
of the new world is it takes a lot more money and risk taking ability
(with risk being both a good result and pain).

I don't see how the CWB has changed this trend. You maybe believe
it is okay for the CWB to be a Robin Hood stealing from the rich and
giving to the poor as a social program. Still interested in your
comments on the PPO contingency fund.

[charliep]

I would argue the CWB has actually hasted the demise of the small farm. Anyone
who can grow a crop for an unknown price with no price guarantees on when
delivery will occur and accept 50 cents on the dollar of an unknown amount has
to have a lot of equity or an understanding banker. New farmers are more likely
to grow open market crops to meet their financial commitments. High equity
farmers (big, small, landlords) that can afford to wait and don't need to worry
about price can grow CWB crops (current world). Farmers who need the cash
have had to use the producer payment options but they are high cost with
potential for revenue from this program to be transferred to the over pooling
system to benefit his neighbors.

[LWeber]

The point of my graph was to point out that the CWB has done nothing to stop the declining farm numbers since 1956 and Walmart or no Walmart, the trend was set long before I was born and will continue long after I am fertilizer.

In 1960, someone was writing letters to the Producer stating the same thing that you have today. Their last names were most likely Atkinson, Sahl, Tait and Turner.

Farmers have also moved from one real horse to a JD4020 with 95 horsepower to tractors and equipment that can come close to working one acre a minute.

The elevator system has changed dramatically during my tenure on this planet. Ten years before I was born, in 1950, there were 3,000 primary elevators. By 1970 there were 2,750 and today less than 318 that includes all the mom and pop shops.

Licensed primary elevator storage capacity has gone from 7.7 MMT in 1950 to 5.65 MMT in 2010. If we export 30 MMT, we are nowhere close to the 10 times throughput efficiency that would be 56.5 MMT. That would mean we are still overbuilt or need more volume.

In the mid-80's, when Otto was looking at new delivery locations, we started by dropping 50 mile circles and extrapolating data within the perimeter. He said by 2000, anyone doing the exercise we were doing would be dropping 200 mile circles on maps. He was right - again.

Foresight. He had it - still does today - even at 79 years old and his daughter is cut from the same cloth.

http://www.hilltimes.com/sites/hilltimes.com/files/slideshow/slide_Otto%20Lang%20with%20daughters%

I have not missed one debate on C18 that has been televised in the house or the committee on C18. Ian McCreary offered up the Continental Market from 1993 as an option - 18 years after the fact. That is hindsight and pissed me off so much I almost threw this thing out the window. He and his ilk made sure the 1993 process went off the rails.

During the past 10 years my focus has been on young farmers when interacting with politicians. The CWB focuses on the older farmer because that is where their support lies. Fair enough. But what is best for the industry.

From the 1993 barley debate, to the 1995 Western Grain Marketing panel to the failed barley legislation in 2006, change has been met with such disdain that I would be acting in the same manner the government is today.

The CWB has had ample time to morph into a significant organization had they chose to focus on youth, rather than the aged. They chose not to. The world changes and today changes faster and more expediently than ever before. Just as there are few if any JD4020's working in fields today, the CWB's time working on the same principles as 1960 - is long past.

I'm not a Walmart fan. I despise going into the stores and avoid it when at all possible. But I admire their foresight and ability to change.

I wish I could say the same about your beloved CWB.

[LWeber]

sorry Charlie... I didnt see your post before I hit send.

Best,

L

[oneoff]

For anyone to argue that the loss of the CWB (or single desk or whatever) will lead to 50,000 acre farms and squeezed margins, and everyone becoming an employee and being "Walmarted" is truly disingenuous. Its a fact that the world is well on the way to all these things; and it all happened during the watch under the CWB.
Similarly; no one should or could argue that it is all the CWB's fault. It is a a fact that the CWB had little control in the past; and would have had no more influence in the future about these ongoing trends.

What the CWB does do, and has done; is to pick special groups who will receive special entitlements. This comes at a cost to those who have to pay for benefits given to uninformed recipients who are so strapped and self centered that they can't even see the point being made.
Its quite possible that many humans are extremely comforted and put great value on feeling or knowing that no one did any better than they personally did. However the free enterprise system is based on a possible reward when someone creates goods and services. In exchange for risk, investment and effort you can make additional money or possibly lose your shirt.

If anthing there should be a penalty for those who only pretend to support the free enterprise system when they are really "welfare and subsidy" recipients of the free enterprise systems. Thats what the CWB became; and thats why it should end.

[LWeber]

Here is the link that works

http://www.hilltimes.com/sites/hilltimes.com/files/slideshow/slide_Otto%20Lang%20with%20daughters%20Elizabeth%2 0and%20Amanda.jpg

[oneoff]

chuck:: Is there any remote possibilty of reversing the trends you now see? Remember a trend must first be stopped , before you can possibly start retracing the changes that have ocurred. And would you be amongst the first to quit expanding; start producing affordable food; and stop taking tax payer and fellow farmer's profits that have possibly been diverted into others bank accounts.

[hedgehog]

speaking as an outsider looking in, it seems to me that the CWB has hastened the demise of the family farm as it seems to be a tax on production, where only those with deep pockets survive.
Contrast that with EUROPE where subsidies have maintained family farms where owner occupancy prevails, but in landlord dominated areas like the UK, family farms have disappeared at a faster rate, and the cash flows directly to lord and lady landlord.

[Hopperbin]

Hedge maybe you can give a better description of how that system in Great Britain works in another thread.
How does the subsidies go to the land lord? Seems a little wrong, but in a way even though any support payments here go to the actual farmer the land lord gets his share in the end because of the bids for the land.

[gregpet]

Charlie and Larry, I think those are two of the best posts ever put on this site. Doubt chuck comes back
with anything.

Wasn't it always the claim of the CWB that small farms will disappear without it when in reality this has
been happening under their noses. This is just one of many fear tactics the CWB uses without any
validity to their arguments.

[Hopperbin]

Chuck I am very disturbed at your first post on here, talking about farmers becoming workers instead of land owner I believe how you say it.
I know a lot of relatives that have rented out one quarter or maybe 4 that they used to subsidize their incomes from working not on the farm, they took careers off farm. Most times years ago these plots of land were given to them and the extra income was a pretty good help to them. Land rent was pretty low at one time don't even know what it was but could actually purchase a quarter for 10 grand so rent could not be very high and purchased land was some times paid for in one year in some years past. Farms got bigger. Unless you want farmers and land owners to be poor how would you stop the progress. We are in an industrial age. The more competitive you are at business the better off.


One other thing, I think you comment on the size of Australian farmers, they became that way because they needed to be competitive. Their land and crops are not the same as we produce here. As far as I know seems they have a lot of failures there much more than we have. Would you suggest working with a 15 foot planter and a 30 year old thrasher is the way to go?