New Subject area

[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?

[AdamSmith]

It's been quite some time since I've visited Commodity Marketing on Agri-ville. Been too busy living life I guess.

I believe the general jist of the original point being made was "Why does everything always seem to evolve back to a CWB discussion and why can't people just leave the CWB alone?"

Well JD4ME, people can't leave the CWB alone because the CWB won't leave people alone.

Ianben has asked some very legitimate questions with respect to new opportunities but unfortunatly the best we can do in western Canada is just talk about it because the CWB would have to stick their nose into it. By the time they've dug their pound of flesh out there would be little left except frustration and anger. Just ask the pasta boys what the reality of value added is when the CWB is your partner.

So as long as the CWB has control of wheat and barley, the opportunities for serious, paradim shifting, value added ventures will remain totally out of reach.

The proof can be seen in a recent previous thread about the CWB giving non-payable loans to a group of people who's life mission is to own assets that have already passed their useful life expectantcy.

So instead of a serious effort being made going in a forward direction, most of todays energy is being spent on old unresolved issues.

I figure that Man will have made the trip to Mars and back, heck we might even discover ways of traveling to distant galaxies millions of light years away and the 250 remaing prairie grain farmers will be divided 130 for the CWB and 120 against.

In the meantime I will grumble some more about the CWB and your gonna grumble because I'm grumbling about them, and someone else in some other country will be busy developing the next generation of value added industry for wheat and barley.

AdamSmith

[JD4ME]

Adam
No you're quite wrong, frankly I don't mind anyone grumbling about stuff like the CWB or George Bush or anything, because fortunately for all of us if we can grumble it shows that the tenants of democracy are intact and thats a good thing. I don't recall saying I was pro or con on the CWB issue, it's far too easy to blame systems for problems rather than developing ways to work within systems to address them. An aurgument based on emotion though powerful is one that is still an emotional aurgument. What I'd hoped to see when I for the first time logged into this room was a positive area devoted to commodity marketing not a tired rehashing of the same old tired aurguments. So please continue to grumble away it's your right and your time but as for me don't imply you know what I'm thinking you don't.

[AdamSmith]

OK JD4ME, let's leave aside the grassy knoll and the duct tape comments and pretend they weren't made with an intent to ridicule.

And let's here some milling wheat and malting barley marketing strategies that are fresh and innovative and of course, real.

JD4ME wrote "it's far too easy to blame systems for problems rather than developing ways to work within systems to address them." I guess the entire population of the old Soviet Union and the former eastern bloc countries were just too dim to figure out how to work within the communist system? The bunch of whiners.

Gimme a break

[cropduster]

Now that one really cuts to the quick Adam!That`s really right on!All these `choice` whiners here in western Canuckistan really should get a grip on that!!Have a GOOD day!!!

[JD4ME]

Adam
Ever hear the saying sometimes you have to make your own breaks, rather than asking others to give them to you.

Again perhaps the way that this forum can serve a more useful purpose is to commit a topic area to CWB issues and a separate one to the marketing of non board commodities, I never said I grew milling wheat or malting barley so I can't help you there but but it seems like every topic in this forum gets turned into a board debate and thats too bad. Have a nice winter- of discontent.