Ag Ministers Seal Your Doom

[freewheat]

wd9, with respect, the region fj and I
farm within, has historically been one
of the highest and most consistent areas
in which to farm in Saskatchewan.

Just saying. It is not like the area has
always been too wet. As conditions move
back towards more common conditions, and
the western side is crying the blues
because of drought, and we are sitting
pretty, i guess we will just tell them
to move to a different area. That is
kind of a low blow.

The point he is trying to make, is that
you can be the worlds best farmer, yet
have crap happen. You can not manage
away too much rain, etc.

That being said, I do not like the
program structures we have in place. i
believe in the marketplace, in freedom,
and in government subsidization cuts. I
will reiterate, if farmers were more
careful and were not racing to be the
biggest, have the newest, and blowing
money like drunken sailors on iron, it
would be better for our public
perception etc..

Just a couple thoughts..

[hedgehog]

wd9, if all the farmers in bad areas jacked it and moved to better areas, the current world shortage of food would be far worse.
basically grain at $9/bu is still as cheap as dirt, thats why programmes are needed.

[farmaholic]

Subsidizing farmers to install autosteer and other toys in their equipment throught the Environmental Farm Plan was a joke. Protecting us from wild market fluctuations or wild weather events is ok with me. If someone who isn't doing this for a living thinks it is so lucrative and without heavy risk can have at it. I am on fjlips side if you want to eat cheap, support the ones who are supplying you with your food. If you don't want to, grow a garden and preserve it with canning and freezing, raise a calf to slaughter(some pigs and chickens too). Don't forget to milk the cow or she will go dry. But who will tend to this when they are at the lake every weekend? Food is too expensive but the boat that gets used 4 months of the year isn't.

[freewheat]

Farmaholic, you are bang on, particularly
regarding food vs. boats etc. Very true.

[wmoebis]

The majority of people would starve to death, if they had to feed themselves. Even right here in Canada.

I have done aot of work with "AG in the classroom", it would scare you.

[wd9]

People are starving not because of food
production but of government oppression
and people just plain poor. You could
get 400 bushels per acre and those same
people would starve.

We grow food for the rich. Period. and
we grow lots of it. The poor will always
starve unless you're willing to give
away your production.

At a billion people making less than a
dollar a day how will they buy your $8
wheat delivered?

In the US, 40 to 50% of the food is
thrown away, gone to waste in the trash.

Everyday 40% of the children in india go
to bed hungry, why? Food rots in huge
piles while they starve.

Bring that home now. You want how much
security in your income to afford that
latest iron? Its gonna cost you big time
because with the loss of risk, comes the
loss of cost, the loss of peaks, the
loss of valleys, the loss of any balance
whatsoever.

Agristability and agri programs are so
unfair and distort any sort of balance
of having risk vs consequences.

Why worry, the government will just keep
giving me money if i cry that i can't
make ends meet. All the while creating a
huge empire. Its wrong folks. This is
about world hunger and feeding people in
the cities.

[mbratrud]

This decision lacked farmer input and basically renders the program useless.

In my Opinion they should have:

- Scrapped Agri Invest make farmers save a little for themselves

- Maintained Agristabilty but put in fail safes to penalize multiple claims and abuse. The program was good but did promote abuse, made it too easy to expand, thus contributing to the run up in Land and Equipment costs.

Problems with what they have done.

The fine print is 70% of Margin or Allowable expenses which ever is less. Most Farms the Allowable expenses would only be about 40% of overall expenses whether you run a $400,000 combine or not. So do the math you are now buying Insurance for about 28% or less of your EXPENSES. You are required to buy 70% coverage in crop Insurance YOU WILL NEVER COLLECT FROM AGRISTABILTY and if you do your first call should be to RBAuction because ytou are screwed.

Changing with the wind is the problem with these programs. They have a couple high claim years and have a knee jerk reaction. If they would just put a program in place leave it for 20 years, penalize abuse is would eventually self fund!

They have just guaranteed more negative returns. Farmers will opt out of Agri Stability but use the Agri Invest (the retarded part of the program), and all it will do is cost taxpayers Money.

Dumb Dumb Dumb. If this is the Governments solution just get the hell out of the Insurance game and let the private industry in with the certainty that they don’t have to compete with government programs. All this tinkering from bureaucrats just skews the market.`

I really thought they were smarter than this.....

Ok Rant Done.

[mbratrud]

I more thing... LOL How much does the program take in premium wise and have they deducted from their 13 bil paid out?

[ado089]

With the shittiest land in SK. still
going for $900/ac I'm sure farmers are
doing fine. If you don't want to go
broke don't spend like you're going to
get 50bu/ac crops at $9 for wheat and
$14 for canola. If you can't make money
farming without the help of the
government step aside because there are
people out there that can. My biggest
barrier to success is finding land at
price that allows for some wiggle room
in tight years all other expenses can be
matched up to production potential and
cash flow is managed to buffer poor
years.

[wlc]

Grew up on regina plains .cream from 2 milk cows paid the power bill[power came in in 1952].Peddling eggs bot
the grocers .Always kept over 2 bins [12 x 14 ]of wheat just in case .I think lived quite well.

[freewheat]

wlc, trouble is, no one wants to work or
be tied down anymore. Heaven forbid you
have to forgo a winter trip to hawaii
and feed animals. Farmers nowadays just
want to ride around in new iron, or
better yet, hire someone else to ride
around for them. Farmers have never
been so lazy in the history of this
occupation. They call four corn plants
and seven potato hills a garden. When it
gets tough to swallow payments on 400
thousand dollar combines, they scream
that times are tough, government must
help. After they park their 60 000
dollar trucks outside the coffee shop,
they head to the mail box to see if they
get a payment. lol

Had a conversation with a fellow who is
a silver spoon farmer. I mentioned I was
just coming in from shutting the
chickens in. He looked at me blankly. He
did not have a clue what the heck I
meant... But had I talked of new iron he
would have jumped all over that
conversation in glee, and fits of
ecstaticism. Sadly, this is the way
farming is today. For someone like you
or I, it can make one feel like a
misfit. But what the heck, I love
farming, and I will not bend to be like
them. EVER.

[mbratrud]

Good Idea, guys lets milk some cows and raise a few chickens, pull the kids out of dance, Skating, Hockey. Tell them to go get a student loan if they want to go to University. When it comes to retirement forget it we will just work until we keel over milking the cow one day. Sounds wonderful.