New Subject area

[JD4ME]

Hey Lee and Charlie, do you think you could arrange a new discusssion area called "The CWB and it's pact with Satan" I think Tom would like to be the moderator. I think if you play the new kennedy assasination game if you play the tape slowly you can see Ken Ritter on the grassy Knoll tom...........

[JD4ME]

haha, guess a person has to have a hobby huh tom.

[melvill]

Considering that I'm old enough to remember exactly what I was doing when JFK was shot, your post has a mixture of humour (I actually laughed out loud) and the morose!

Charlie and I sometimes wonder what it would take to get the Marketing area to discuss something other than the CWB debate.

[TOM4CWB]

JD4ME;

Trying to fight off the chains of the CWB is more than a hobby, it is more like a full time job!

Hope we will make our farms and communities stronger... and better... by standing for truth and freedom.

Thanks for the concern!

[TOM4CWB]

Lee;

What other single factor has so much effect Lee.

A $45/t buy back on feed wheat

A $30/t buy back on feed barley.

Take one look at the new 2nd barley pool PRO the CWB just put out!

What can I say Lee... does this not throw a chain around the whole feed market in western Canada and suck it down?

[JD4ME]

yes Lee I posted that with my tounge planted firmly in my cheek, I think apart from a roll (wait I've seen tom) a case of duct tape and taking away somebodies internet priviledge, youre somewhat limited ergo the new discussion area, I'd like to believe that we could have good discussions here without being dragged kicking and screaming into old circular debates but singlemindedness and common sense sometimes don't track together all that well. Hence my grassy knoll observation. one thing about an area like this is that if you choose not to read something or from someone you can make the decision.

[agstar77]

So Tom you want truth and freedom. Then you should really get rid of the chains of the CWB and breathe the free air of the ADM's and Cargill's.

[TOM4CWB]

Agstar77;

I can smell the fear, intimidation, and deception, two feet from my keyboard!

Why can't we bake a bigger pie.

Bake a pie based on trust, good will, faith, and a spirit of cooperation!

Wouldn't this be much better for our families and communities?

[agstar77]

The spirit of co-operation is dying in the west, along with dozens of boarded up communities. What is the cause? CWB maybe or is it the rush to be bigger more efficient farm corporations caused by production cost squeeze in the quest for cheap food . A bigger pie would be nice but if it only means more for a few ,these communities are doomed. Dwindling population crumbling infrastructure, what the west needs is a larger population base and move away from agriculture dependency on large corporate farms .They may be efficient but they will not fill the empty classrooms or the community centers. A few large farmers will not pay for the crumbling highway system. You can talk all you want about freedom and independence but that won't save the rural economy in the west. Alta. is surviving on oil everyone else is out of luck. Excuse me for rambling, I get like this when someone tells me all I need is freedom to be successful, besides it's been a stressful year.

[crusher]

So... we need an influx of new farmers. Will they be the present rural kids staying at home and raising a family, or is it enhanced immigration? To attract them the job, and its compensation, needs to be competitive with other vocations. But to do that, we probably need higher prices and if that happens, then the current farmers will likely expand faster than the new farmers. Therefore we still have the same problem of shrinking rural population.
Just thinking out loud, but the first thing that comes to mind is REALLY attractive beginning farmer programs. In this day and age of "money is everything" it's hard to argue for the intangibles of the rural life. Perhaps society will come full circle some day and start moving back to the country, but I don't think that has happened anywhere in the world yet!

[agstar77]

I didn't say more farmers, more people. Farming is becoming less labour intensive which means fewer workers. We must take a new direction , make an inventory of assets such as infrastructure and choose a new direction . We have a bunch of bright fellows here . Think outside the box because the writing has been on the wall for agriculture for a long time.

[melvill]

The rural population slump has been on my mind for some time. I'm thinking, for example, of where my family farm is located. The population there is dropping and aging. With that change, the number of kids is dropping and schools are closing. The school in my home town was saved from closing by the municipal gov't offering to pay all utilities and some strong support from the MLA. That is only a short-term solution, however.

To add further injury the little grocery store closed. Now the nearest groceries are nearly 20 miles further down the highway.

I keep asking myself what I can do to stop the population drain. In my opinion, better beginning farmer programs aren't the solution because it isn't very long before that program is capitalized into the cost of land.

I think the better solution is to encourage diversified economic development in rural areas. How we do it, though, really has me scratching my head.

Probably the first step in that direction is getting high speed internet into every little community. No business operates very successfully these days without infrastructure and internet access is the first step.

So what are the next steps?

[JD4ME]

OK this topic has taken on the tone of the sit in a circle game and whisper something in the neighbors ear and when it comes all the way around the message is 200 miles from when it left, so that it how commodity marketing becomes rural revitilazation. sheesh. lol Anyhow as Lee and Charlie will tell us our house our rules. Melvill I believe what we'll see in Alberta is what we are seeing in the hiway 2 corridor where ag is being pushed out by residential and industrial. Our farm is in Coal bed Methane Central I'm afraid and I spend as much time being a land man as a farmer anymore it seems. I also spent as much time trying to figure out how to get some other business going here to capitilize on the activity when I'm just one man and this farm already needs all my time and more. What I think will happen is the "farmers" will be pushed out gradually to the outside of alot of these areas if they want to expand and keep doing what they love.
Our game plan has been to turn this main farm into something diversified,Modern and efficient as hell. SO Now a question for you...... now that all our neighbors have suddenly a lot more cheques arriving from non farm (well income) and the ones that are driving the new trucks and going on big holidays and really like the lifestyle part of the equation more than the land part will likely hang in for a while to come .
So the question is will we see operations becoming more spread out as land in close gets harder to find and the big problem we really have in Alberta from what I see is lack of good farm help. Its not a easy job and the management and marketing side of these operations take a lot more time than in my fathers day. Where do we find the help and what radius from an operation is a person wise to expand too, I also would never expand over any distance to rent land it would have to be to buy . SO I either grow or start investing off farm which traditionally in my experience has been less than kind, other people like to take your money and use it to make them money not you. Sorry for the long message but Id like to hear your viewpoint, sorry to those that will cuss me for being healthy enough these days to think of expanding(or stupid enough)

[agstar77]

In my area land is the commodity and ag products are secondary . Acreages are driving land prices . The good news is that they bring population to pay taxes and fill the schools . The bad news is that expansion is almost impossible because of high land prices. Commodity prices will never rise enough to allow us to justify expansion. It is becoming clear that commodity prices are becoming irrelevant . Only government support and off farm income allows us to farm. As an example farmers who grew sunflowers are doing quite well as long as they have government subsidized crop insurance. The time of a fully vertically integrated agriculture is not far away. Low commodity prices will drive farmers to the wall forcing them to be more dependent on large corporations for capital and government for production subsidies. The days of independent farmers are numbered.

[ianben]

People are the key. Much as I hate the congestion and noise my contrymen make at least they provide the money to keep me farming.

Here there is a growing enthusiasm for non food crops, energy, plastic replacer, bi-degradable car interiors and packaging. Green, anti polution, greenhouse gas, kyoto, and economic push all these ideas from pie in the sky to fact.

I find it puzzleing that if this is true here why is it not happening in Sask or Man?

Why is feed wheat practically worthless on farm when it is the raw material for all these new industies which would bring opertunities jobs and people?

Is the old subject to blame?