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

[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.

[TOM4CWB]

We pay low taxes.

Agr whatever has no premiums.

We got exactly what we paid for.

In hindsight we could have bought excess rainfall insurance providers in the past have insured drought etc.

Like buying Puts. Who did it?

[TOM4CWB]

Unnatural weather events?

Are you kidding me?

10 inch rainfall months are common in many parts of global ag production area historically. We usually farm in the desert here.

[Braveheart]

There you Bucket, some good suggestions.

What I would like to see is very basic. Start from the top down. That means having a goal or vision on what ag/rural Canada should look like and work backwards. Once you do that, the gaps get filled in address all the needs, from drowned out crops to Breadwinners unfortunate flood out. Currently, everyone just lurches from one reactionary disaster to the next.

Of course this is a 180 change and wouldn't immediately provide relief.

[farmaholic]

Braveheart, not completely true in oil rich provinces today, maybe so in the past. Also the fact there are ALLOT of people hanging on the Ag tit is probably why the industry is supported. When we are net exporters how many farmers do you think Canada needs to feed itself. Its the economic activity we create or is created directly because of what we do is why Ag gets the support it does, ever so little it is today.

We don't do crop insurance, past history tells us we feel we can handle the risk. We haven't qualified for Ag-Instability since the frost of 2004 and that event wouldn't have wiped us out either. We, as Producers, are playing a high stakes poker game that makes Vegas look like child's play and not everyone can afford to take that gamble without some sort of backstop, to each their own.

[TOM4CWB]

Bucket

How much does good farm land cost in Iowa?

Check that out.

$15k an acre?

Capitalized into the land it is.

[saskcanfarmer]

Tom - I used to think you were a smart guy. Slowly I have realized you are an idiot. That is all.