$300,000.00 agri- instability welfare to the rich cheques.

[parsley]

Its a beautiful March morning to drop a thought
bomb:

"Good" farmers save for a rainy day. "Good"
farmers don't base their financial planning on
government handouts. And that's what Ag I&S
really amounts to.....tax dollar handouts. Crop
Insurance is already government subsidized, too.

Farmers cannot defend ag welfare by endorsing
the survival of only "good" farmers. If you do,
you are really approving support of governments
with a central planning agenda; support of
governments who pick and choose winners
through subsidy, instead of guaranteeing an even
playing field to compete.

Certainly all governments have tried to manage
agriculture. Meddle. Impose. Regulate. Choose.
Institutionalize. In Argentina, for years they taxed
agriculture. In Canada, we tax our florist and
electrician to subsidize agriculture.

Lets grow up.

Taxpayer subsidization of arbitrarily chosen
preferred income levels is the crassest of all
welfare, a political practice which the diehards
would probably defend at any level, including an
annual global tax levy presented soley to Google
for assuring them future suceess, as long as a
political donation was returned in the mail.

Any "good" farmer worth his salt will encourage
his farm organization to lobby to end all
agricultural welfare that takes money out of the
pockets of plumbers and writers and derrick
workers.

Dollar-propping certain groups at the expense of
others is what got the G20 into the deep water we
have to swim out of. Governments borrow money
to dish out to farmers. Can you morally,
financially or socially defend this practice? Have
we learned nothing?

Some farmers, indeed, have come to view their
fellow farmers as dispensible, rather like sizing up
the herd to see which cow to shoot in the fall.

Is there a growing brand of scorn and entitlement,
nurtured by unearned taxdollars, which enforces
the notion of the "good" farmer's indispensibility?

If the barn cat creeps up to the step & meows for
cream, and gets it, he returns every day, and
soon becomes pampered, lazy, and preening.
But dont forget he'll freeze cold-dead in the barn
when its forty below and the new landlord cuts the
grocery budget and exclaims, "He's fat and lazy.
Let him eat mice".

Beat me with your pen, Pars

[grrrr]

What gets me with government programs is the sense of entitlement that they create. I run a small farm by most standards. I think I do a pretty good job of it. It is clean. It is efficient. If I was to do an environmental farm plan (EFP), there isn't much that the taxpayers of the country would have to buy me that I need. I already care about the environment and I farm accordingly. I have a neighbor who has done an EFP and has applied for funding for all kinds of things that taxpayers must now help him buy These are things he should do himself. You know what? His farm is an environmental disaster!! Right now I could drive into his yard and see a dead animal of some sort, cow or pig, laying between the house and the barn. This is something for the cats and dogs to chew on all winter. I could show you the hole where he burns his garbage, anything and everything. I could show you old plastic containers of various sizes holding waste oil scattered around behind various sheds. It goes on and on. Why should taxpayers be envolved with buying this guy stuff? And now at a time when we have record farm incomes? My rant is over, for now!

[parsley]

Throwing out a suggestion: So...Cutback.
Advocate scrapping expensive environmental
plan and staff. Instead use a small % of funding
for rewarding excellence:

Replace expensive plan with local rural
municipal volunteers who yearly choose a
'environmental stewards' farm farm, judged par
excellence by peers.

Each year, a winning family would get free tickets
to one, say, Rider's game or Jet's game or
Winnipeg ballet, or musical tour. ;= )

Object:. Rewards excellence instead of
bureaucracy building.Elevates expectations of
management. Rewards initiative. Better use of
dollars. Pars

[farmaholic]

Agristability is not designed to make money but maybe keep you in business. As I said earlier, it is a flawed program because it doesn't protect you from declining margins by itself, crop insurance will supposedly help with that to some extent(what about declining personal yeild averages?). Secondly, if your in trouble, you will need to make an interim application because it is way too slow to react to the loss of margin in the year it happens. I am sure there are other problems as well.

First Tier:
There is no coverage for the first 15% margin decline. Tap into agri-invest if you have some.

Second Tier:
There is 70% coverage for the next 15%margin decline.

First and Second Tier combined:
In effect, for the first full 30% margin decline they are really only covering 35%, anything less(than 30%) of a margin decline, means less coverage(tier 1 & 2 combined). Hardly a windfall of protection in the first 30% decline.

Third Tier:
They will cover 80% of the margin decline from 70% of your margin down to 0%. This is the best coverage.

First, Second and Third Tier Combined:
If you had a complete wipe-out, with 0% of your reference margin, total coverage would be about 66.5%.

We are currently building our reference margin in these good years(yes, we have been "lucky"). 2004, the frost year, we qualified for a payment and nothing since.

It is that time of year the enrolment/fee notices came. So yes, it costs to participate in agri-stability, but they are matching agri-invest deposits 100%.

Does anyone hate this program so much that they refuse to participate? Or hate it so much that if they received a cheque they wouldn't accept it or refuse to participate in agri-invest?
What I don't like about it is having to disclose my inventory, receivables, etc., too much information.


There was another guy who seemed to know the program inside out, maybe they need to weigh in here!!

[parsley]

I personally know quite a few people who don't
"hate the program", in fact, they don't evaluate the
operability merits of the program at all, but they
refuse to participate because they feel the
principle of the program is not the direction
agriculture should be headed.

So they rejected signing up. Pars

[bgmb]

Parsley,

Good farmers and business prople don't put their livelihood on the line to prove a point! Thats what you would be doing if you don't participate in these farm welfare programs. lol

I wouldn't care if these programs were canceled as long as they were for everyone in all industries and other free trade nations.

As I stated above I have collected next to nothing from these programs over the years because I keep increasing my production over time and farm enough acres that things often even out.

But I still don't mind getting some of my taxes back once and awhile!

[parsley]

"but THEY are matching agri-invest deposits
100%. "

Compliments of an unwilling Joe the Plumber.
Pars

[farmaholic]

Parsley: When producers have the ability to price their products according to costs of production and built in profit margins then I will refuse to participate in the programs offered. I've said it before, governments must see value in primary agriculture in both economic contributions and food security if they are willing to provide support(when needed).
Who in their right mind would take this kind of risk, seems if one is'nt born into it one would never chance it.

[farmaholic]

"I" pay taxes too!!!

[parsley]

"Good farmers and business prople don't put their
livelihood on the line to prove a point! Thats what
you would be doing if you don't participate in
these farm welfare programs."

Ahhhhh, "good" farmers.

The farmers I spoke with have a contingency plan
in place to cover a bad year. It's because they are
'good' farmers that they don't expect Joe the
Plumber to buy 365 X 3 meals for every farmer's
bad year.

We have a different concept of what a "good"
farmer really is, yes we do; good to go vs good to
mooch. Pars