Ritz just told all us flooded farmers to F&@k Off!

[foragefarmer]

You Alberta boys sure know how to pickem. I bet Bluepowder you must be proud of your provincial Tory's. I hear you and the rest of the boys wrote personal cheques for Redford and her daughter's worldy trips.

[Braveheart]

So some here are saying they are unhappy with Ritz's response to the flood. But you're not saying what you want? Direct payments? Agri Recovery? Agri Stability advance payments?

Just bemoaning govt response is easy and as seen above is a waste of time. What do want for policy?

[bucket]

I guess if you look at what happened in 2010 there is a precedent as to what they could do.

What pisses me off is that statscan keeps calling saying they are using the information to develop programs.

I asked what for, the government has gutted all the farm programs and they haven't studied the effect of what happened in 2010 or 2011 or they would know what to do in 2014.

The reason ag gets supported is that if you lose a business cycle you can't get it back, period. The majority of other businesses the work will still be there.
The only other one is snow removal.

[TOM4CWB]

Braveheary

We can buy rainfall ins. Too much or too little from private insurance coverage.

The crop insurance we could have is really reasonable and backed be the feds.

The free lunches just get capitalized into land values anyway.

We have some of the most advanced risk management in history anywhere.

Cheers.

[Hopalong]

Substitute the name Van Clief for Ritz and drought for floods and it is an old topic. Advisors play a large part in policy.
Farmers ourselves have told governments to develop more predictable programs and move away from spur of the moment ad hoc payments.

[Braveheart]

The reason ag should be supported is that it's not necessarily support for ag, it's support for rural Canada. The entire foundation of rural Canada is built on agriculture. Always has been and will always be.

The gutting of ag programming is coming from inexperienced civil servants. These people have little understanding of how things really work and outside of a poli-sci degree have nothing going on. It's unfortunate that Gerry Ritz isn't a strong enough leader/minister to tell these people they work for him, not the other way around.

[TOM4CWB]

Sf3

Can you imagine farming in Russia or Ukraine right now.

How much competition do you think that they get where MH17 fell

Perhaps Charlie can fill us in on what a farmer in Ukraine have for government support.

[BreadWinner]

The losses that I feel I should be compensated for are the ones from overland water flowing. I have land along the creeks that overflowed there banks flooding out 100s of acres. Mostly due to cutting of roads and washing out of highways. The higher land I have will offset the loss on the flooded out land. PDAP covers uninsurable losses so why won't it cover this kind of spot loss in ag. There is NO spot loss insurance available for flooding. Too bad for me I guess.

[Braveheart]

Tom, I agree with you. As well, I've never supported ad hoc payments. Bankable crop insurance programs, good. Unbankable Ag Stability, manipulated by CFA to mainly support Ontario corn and soy farmers, bad.

I would like see people try to be proactive. Try, "Ritz needs to provide . . ." instead of "Ritz told us to . . ., he's a . . .".

[TOM4CWB]

I should get a real. Computer. This spell check isn't the best.

Compensation not Competition.

[Braveheart]

Yes Tom. We're all trying to keep it real here)

[bucket]

TOM

You are wrong. The american farmer is being told he will grow another record crop, and guys down there are saying because the price keeps dropping on a per bushel basis, there will be government payments, to ensure their income doesn't drop below the cost of production. And BTW the cost of production includes a profit in any other business.

Hopalong.

I agree, adhoc payments are not the way but if no one ever develops a proper program without gutting it or eliminating it within 5 years its still just an adhoc.

GRIP had close to a billion dollars put away and Paul martin decided to help balance the budget with it. Had it been left alone very few would have had to worry about floods, droughts or frosts. And the tab would have been picked up by the farmer themselves.

Crop insurance has to change to per quarter coverage as opposed to a whole farm approach. Farms are getting so tight with margins that every quarter counts. I see guys that have one quarter of peas dessimated by root rot, another a mile away in great shape. In reality the poor one should be written off and not count against his average but it doesn't work that way. He will harvest the poor one and average it with the good one.

There is a change that could be made.

Big or small, self made or inherited, I don't care who are. No one should lose because of these unnatural weather events.