Is Monette Farms like Bernie Madoff?

[Old Cowzilla]

Neighbors are miles and miles apart in that country. BSE destroyed most ranchers up there with just a few surviving and picking up more pasture. The rest is being tackled by grain guys looking for dirt. Young pups look that way to become BTO'S plain and simple cause dirt is not changing hands fast enough in this area. There's no walmart or gas station just down the street and your nearest neighbor is one of the reserves. Might be hard getting your new bride to move up there. And yes maybe some reget by the local coffee shop crowd shoulda, coulda, woulda !!!

[LEP]

Neighbors are miles and miles apart in that country. BSE destroyed most ranchers up there with just a few surviving and picking up more pasture. The rest is being tackled by grain guys looking for dirt. Young pups look that way to become BTO'S plain and simple cause dirt is not changing hands fast enough in this area. There's no walmart or gas station just down the street and your nearest neighbor is one of the reserves. Might be hard getting your new bride to move up there. And yes maybe some reget by the local coffee shop crowd shoulda, coulda, woulda !!!

What did Monette pay for that land? Running a Cat all winter can't be cheap let alone 15 or 20.

[ajl]

Welcome to interesting times. Land prices suggest that you push bush while grain market tell you not to. Would have been far cheaper to buy sub $13 canola a month ago than invest in more land. Right now sale and lease back deals are on the rise which is how how to stay solvent in the face of unfavorable economics. Apparently still capital available to do this. Airlines do this with planes a year or two before bankruptcy. Farmers do this with land, not x9. This land is sold at a discount and is not arms length so does not show up in FCC land values reports. Strap in. Big question will be if gubmint can generate sufficient reflation before the fertilizer gets to the ventilator or not.

[the big wheel]

I d like to know if Agristability is paying for this expansion? Used to be favorable if you
expanded acres your margins were impacted positively for a payout it was a program set up not to help small farms but for those expanding more?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

At some point should there not be a discussion about clearing new land on that type of scale? I mean do we not understand as farmers that the market will be using that excuse to lower our prices? Second are we gone way past the point of worrying about smaller communities sustainability, lets face it larger farms have been a major cause of disappearing and struggling smaller communities? Or are we just in a free for all now with every aspect of our future?

I wouldn't worry about few thousand acres being added in Manitoba. It is a drop in the bucket.

Brazil plans to add 19 million acres in the next decade. That far exceeds the entirety of Manitoba's cropland at only 11.6 million acres.

[Oliver88]

I wouldn't worry about few thousand acres being added in Manitoba. It is a drop in the bucket.

Brazil plans to add 19 million acres in the next decade. That far exceeds the entirety of Manitoba's cropland at only 11.6 million acres.

Clearing 10-20,000 acres in Manitoba will only add to the economy and jobs to the local community with grain land or higher productive pasture.

Seems like a ridiculous topic to be having started by bellyachers on coffee row. (Crestliner's comments sum this up perfectly.)

[TASFarms]

I wouldn't worry about few thousand acres being added in Manitoba. It is a drop in the bucket.

Brazil plans to add 19 million acres in the next decade. That far exceeds the entirety of Manitoba's cropland at only 11.6 million acres.

The more land they clear in Brazil is going to result in more droughts. I would think that this has already started.

[Taiga]

They cleared 140,000+ ac up in LaCrete over the last 10 years and I don’t recall any whining about that.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Regarding land clearing, I know in my area there is a heck of a lot of bush being pushed. Go back before the 50's and there wasn't tree there historically.

That is often the case locally. People get upset about taking out trees, but they aren't the original factory installed trees, they are mostly recent additions.
Most trees around here have a fenceline in the middle of them, or a piece of farm machinery, or pothole etc. If you use the timelapse feature on google earth, you can see these trees expanding every year. A lot of non farmers who want their land to grow back to trees. Many farmers without livestock to control trees, and no mechanical means, so they just move further out every year and let the trees take another strip.

I met an older couple taking pictures around here one day. He had moved away from this area in 1971ish. He was shocked at how much more bush there is now. In those days you could see for miles, now every view is blocked by trees in every direction.

[BighatPete]

Absolutely impossible to get that big in 15 years...we all wonder how? It works till it doesn't.

That was my original reason for the post. I have no idea what is going on, but farms like Monette's are built in generations, not 15 years.

[BighatPete]

Clearing 10-20,000 acres in Manitoba will only add to the economy and jobs to the local community with grain land or higher productive pasture.

Seems like a ridiculous topic to be having started by bellyachers on coffee row. (Crestliner's comments sum this up perfectly.)

I agree - this isn't a story. Isn't it strange that WP did a whole story on Monette, but didn't mention the elephant in the room. It's lazy reporting. My guess is someone emailed them upset as a lead. To do real digging to explain how he is funded and what his strategy is (besides throwing darts) is too much work.

[fjlip]

Yes, somebody dig up details, this fast an increase is impossible.