Who agrees and who disagrees! Open for discussion.

[foragefarmer]

Hopalong

" jack of all trades farmers (and masters of none), grade eight education, wheat pool committees, single country elevator delivery points and more."

I would a have to disagree with you on many fronts of this statement.

Jack of all trades farmers would qualify as diversification which in my eyes are farmers that are currently doing the best in today's farming. Examples for this would be producing livestock, growing forage for seed production, selling hay, etc etc.

As for education, many successful farmers have limited education, but have adopted to many new farming methods and technologies.

As for farmers in committees, does it really matter which one they belong to, sticking together to take on farming issues so voices can be heard is important at any level. Things are happening so quickly in Agriculture communication between farmers is so very important. We certainly are not getting any help with from our Ag minister Ritz

[jamesb]

The bottom line is that all areas of the chain must be profitable or else its not sustainable. I believe farmers are a lot better business people than we were in the past and if we run the farm as a business, do the math we can find the profit centers. IMO the big monolithic companies always leave room unintentionally for the small nimble operations to survive and thrive. Its in our power to decide who we do business with.

[agchat]

Well tweety, you disagree but no explanation as to why. Hmm, that is kinda like phoning in a complaint, them making it anonymous. Just a waste of everyone's time.

[TOM4CWB]

Sf3
One Earth and Broadacre show we have a very long track of failures disproving you

Weather is a very disruptive element to your model plus motivated labour to work 18 hour days

No good model to control this risk

Cheers

[wilagro]

I partially agree with the scenario presented...BUT...you farmers DESERVE everything that is coming to you.

You collectively shucked off your Co-operative elevator systems, you went along with the CONS and their elimination of the ONLY marketing system you ever had (CWB), you wanted FREEDOM. Well not you have it...FREEDOM TO BE USED AND ABUSED.

Are you happy now?...NO!!! of course not...farmers are NEVER happy. It must be in the genes or some infectious disease.

I wouldn't recommend farming to any of the younger generation...buy your food from China or Russia or the good ol' USA...who gives a rat's ass for agriculture in Canada anyway.

[farmaholic]

Furrow, you hit the nail on the head. They'd rather have 10 financially weak customer's than 100 well heeled. Who do you think is easier to abuse?

[farmaholic]

"Business oriented farm structure is going to have more advantage in future because it will provide more attractive income to everyone involved."

LOL, you mean a business structure like One Earth and Broad Acre. That's laughable. There isn't enough to go around to support a normal business structure. I've often said farmjng is a business but not one a normal business structure can be applied to. And we all know why. Production uncertainty, lack of ability to price in a profit (price takers), general lack of control.... give your head a shake, drinking Tom's Kool aid?

[freewheat]

I see a couple scenarios, depending on your farm stage and perspective, and if you want to work and do with less like our parents did, or if you are entitled to stuff they never ever dreamed of being entitled to.

I see the big farms, going broke with no one left to pick up the pieces. When a 15 000 acre farm sells out, there are only so many smaller guys left to lap those acres up. So at this point, yes, I think large companies will jump on it.

But I also see lots of hope in the current trend where people want "local fresh food". I think capitalizing on that trend, is going to pay big dividends. It is an enormous movement these days. People want good old pork. They want free range eggs, turkeys, and chicken. They want stone ground flour, with pictures of the farmer standing in his crop on the packaging. Those who fill this void, will do VERY well, IMO. But they will have to WORK. YEAR ROUND. Which means no holidays, doing with less, and not relying on the big companies. Iron, Elevators, Fertilizer.

But around here, most young fellows have such limited drive to do physical labor. They get pa to sell the cows, cuz it interferes with their winter snow machine fun, and trips to Oahu. They push for new iron because it is embarrassing to use the old stuff.

Those kind of guys, will fit into the camp of further mainstream agriculture decline.

The rare guys who think outside the box, the guys with cows or other stock, the new comers who want to farm differently... Those guys will thrive producing WHAT THE CONSUMERS WANT AND DESIRE. It will be on a smaller scale, and the traditional guys will laugh and scoff, as Viterra overtakes their farms.

Will this scenario happen to farmers?

Yes, some will get sucked in, actually, many will. But it will not happen to us all.

So that is what I see. Google Cool springs ranch, or Pineview farms. Outside the box thinkers, who are making a lot of money, doing non-traditional things. working hard ALL YEAR, giving up some of the perks. They are giving the consumers, just what it is that they want...

[farmaholic]

.....the Hutterite model? You mean the one in that the workers work for only room and board? No ownership of anything? Too funny...

[furrowtickler]

Ya the Hut comment is irrelavent in this discussion.
If they paid wages for all the work done , their farms would be vastly diff .

[WiltonRanch]

So true Freewheat. My land base is best suited to mixed farming. I could go either way and still do okay in each sector but I like to spread the risk. Seen dry years where grain crops sucked but there was still something for the cows to eat. The guys who were all cows were dumping cause they had no grass or feed. When cows were terrible the canola cheques helped out and the cows ate cheaper crop residues. If I have some cereal grains that are light or heated I feed them to the calves and get better money out of the deal. At one time our operation was primarily grain but when the Crow was eliminated a sizeable portion of our hills were seeded down and we tripled our herd size.

I can see how the big cos are gradually getting their hands around the nuts of over leveraged producers. That scares the crap out of me because you lose your freedom and individuality. I hold that as my whole reason to live. I don't know about a few mega farms. More like 5 to 10 thousand acre farms. Seems like equipment and logistical limitations for 2 or 3 men is maxed. And that is maxed.

[blackpowder]

I find nothing to disagree with in Freewheats statement.

[wmoebis]

Agree Wilton. When cattle dropped in price and grain was good, Experts said 'specialize' get out of cattle and grow more grain. Then grain dropped and cattle sky rocketed, same experts said 'diversify' buy cattle.
Old timer once said "have a little of both, if you ever get stuck grab a cow by the tail she will pull you out".

[Richard5]

agree 100% with freewheat

I think there is this mentality about "the show" that one puts on from the road.

Many farmers don't care about this and are doing well (or well enough) for their own personal values. These are the ones that don't cry wolf everytime something doesn't go the way they think it should.

[Hopalong]

Responding particularly to Freewheat and Wilton.
Used to think same way as them, theory made sense but was different in practice.
Especially with mixed cattle grain operation, was true that when one was up, other was down.
It smoothed out cash flow and profit variability but think over longer term, grain was more profitable.
Risk management programs including crop insurance and Agristability subsidies have made most of the difference in grain profitability.
The other big thing is spreading management ability and timeliness of operations over two seperate large scale operations. Very often, one suffered at the expense of the other.
If there is local demand for production, more diversified operation may be better but for large scale commodity think spreading ourselves too thin is as big a danger.
Before getting jumped on for using subsidized risk management, should say that we would look at private risk management before going back to more diversified operation.