Good Article in Today's Leader Post about Why POT laying off workers.

[TOM4CWB]

C.P.;

"How does your logic fit with free/fair/open markets?"

NO ONE EVER PROMISED LIFE (or markets... or economies... or anything else) WOULD BE F A I R...!!!

Do you expect to take one ounce of gold... peck of $$$bills... bu of Wheat or Canola... with you when you die?

So you work and slave... to gain WHAT... for WHAT REASON?

ANSWER... to give it all away!

May as well learn how to do this now.. C.P.... get in practice!

The more we learn how to 'give' things away... honestly... the higher and greater the opportunity we will create to 'give' away even more wealth!!!

That is what prosperity is all about in the first place!!! NO HOARDING ALLOWED!!!

[parsley]

I have family in th know living there, and that's what they say. I specifically asked. Pars

[cottonpicken]

Dying to see what everyone else thinks.

[bluefargo]

Ofcourse crop insurance is subsidized! The Feds pay half the premium. The Province picks up the administative costs.
It likely works out to the producer paying about 40%

[dave4441]

Do you see anyone trying to compete privately with Crop Insurance? No. Of course it is subsidized. Might be a poor program at times, but does not mean that it is not subsidized.

[cottonpicken]

typical,illogigical,nonsencical responces.

You'll spend countless hours fighting the cwb but wont put one second of time fighting for free,fair,open global markets.

[poorboy]

Crop insurance is an expensive program to run the way it is. To employ all the paper pushers and price forcasters, as well as the people to measure bins, walk fields, etc. all come at a huge cost.

My feeling is that the farmers now actually contribute what the dollars are to equal the payouts on a long term average but do not cover any of the manpower and admistration costs. The federal and provincial gov't contribute a huge amount of money for the program.

Perhaps if a better weather network was set up, you could buy crop insurance based on a percentage of normal rainfall and growing degree days, as well as frost. It could be done be computer measurements from the weather stations and you get a payout or just contribute your money.

It possibly would be a cheaper way to provide some stability to farms than the crop insurance currently offers. Make it mandatory to belong every year, or something to that effect, in order to stop people from joining just because it looks dry going into fall.

Farmers get subsidized heavily in Canada as well as the US, but it is just done differntly in Canada, so it is not as noticeable.

For example, crop insurance, ag research sites and new crop varieties, being able to use farm fuel in your pickup truck, year end tax deductions for next years crop inputs, regulated rates on railway costs, reduced regulations for carrying herbicides/pesticides in your pickup truck (as compared to what the oil industry must comply to), and many more. Not always direct cheque in the mail type of subsidies.

[TOM4CWB]

C.P.;

Ever heard of Grain Growers of Canada... they work on my behalf... to do exactly as you have said... we lobby in Ottawa... and around the globe with organisations like Pulse Canada... Alberta Barley Commission... just in case you had not noticed! What do you think CAFTA did all these years on WTO... and the millions spent to try to get a good agreement through Fed/Prov. lobby and grower networks spending 1000's of hours on this!

And all this counts for nothing... and makes us a 'one trick pony'?

[TOM4CWB]

C.P.;

By the way... we are in the final negotiation stage... on a web based weather based insurance product... sold by privates... hopefully to be in place for the 2009 crop in some parts of western Canada. If not this crop year... then 2010. Who do you guess has been the most difficult party to deal with... in implementation of this new product? Why do you think they resist these new options?

[rbrunel]

Hi Tom
I saw a presentation on the weather based private insurance early last year. It seems like a good option for certain crops. The only thing I didn't see was the premium cost etc. I would be interested in seeing that presentation again now that it sounds like it is closer to implementation. Is there someone who would present the updated program?

Are you comming to wpg the first week of Feb for the Risk Management working group Tom?
Hope to see you there
R Brunel