Sask Irrigation project

[newguy]

Looks like a lot of money to spend to bennifit a small % of farmers.Are dryland farmers not growing enough ?

[SASKFARMER]

We are.

[sumdumguy]

Shouldn’t be a priority at this time at all.

[bucket]

If you look at the announcement the day before. The existing irrigation districts are receiving $40 an acre per year for the next 5 years. They just finished the previous 5 years with the same funding. These districts will never be off the government tit. over the 10 year period those districts will receive $400 per acre.

Now if they told every farmer in this new project to come up with 1.5 million to get water to the each quarter there might be an economic case to do it. But then like the previous 40 years those guys won't get out their chequebooks.

If a guy has land approved for irrigation on that new project , he just became a multi millionaire without doing a thing or spending a dime of their own money. They can sell the quarter and take the capital gain.

People should look at the facts. Only 5% of the existing projects acres are in specialty high value crops. It's published on an irrigation website somewhere. So when you use the 5% of acres to grow higher value crops the cost of this project on a per acre basis is insane.

The farmers benefiting can't even pay for the sledding costs to qualify their land , the government is picking up the tab. And they certainly couldn't pay the 60million plus in interest costs every year for this borrowed money.

Dryland farmers and ranchers should be outraged and yet farm groups are cheerleading this stupidity for 450 farmers.

[fjlip]

Too much supply already, lets add CRAZY expensively produced to the pile.

[bucket]

Then if you buy into the economic driver argument, why isn't there better highways in these areas, more population , hospitals, schools that were there 40 years ago. Why are farmers in higher production areas where these projects are built have to haul their grain further.

As an example, Viterra closed the Eyebrow 10000 tonne concrete only 20 minutes from the Riverhurst project. All farmers haul further. Outlook district the closest is Vittera at Loreburn, or else I think it is Rosetown. Luck lake who knows where guys haul although we do see super Bs using the ferry to go to Reed Lake.

Every single business that has shown up espousing great things have received government money, stuck it out maybe 5 years and then left.

Imagine what 40 bucks an acre would do for your dryland farm and the economics it would produce as opposed to $12000 per acre for infrastructure plus the on farm costs of around $200000 for every pivot install.

There also isn't a pivot manufacturer in Canada after all these years . So about 100 million of this is going to the benefit of the US economy if not more when you factor in pumps etc.

I really don't know how 450 farmers can put that many dollars on the taxpayer.

[bucket]

Every single farmer that qualifies for irrigating on that project should write a cheque for 1.5 million for each quarter that has water supplied to it. There is the litmus test for whether it will be successful.

Some of the dummies that cheerlead this nonsense think it's like a natural gas or power line to your farm. Well if you have tried to hook up to power or gas lately it is fairly expensive for the service. But people will pay for it because it is a year round supply plus the energy companies know they will recoup it over the long term.

Irrigation is not the same. It's 3 months of the year. There is no recoup of the investment unless you consider writing it down to a dollar a good return.

[newguy]

Water project are a slippery slope.It was a good thing when Devine held extra water on the praries in south sask.But to redirect that much water At a huge cost to produce more grain commodities seems to be a win for a few farmers and a negative for the rest. I wonder how much land in those areas getting the lottery win is owed by close relatives of Sask Party members.? Or if they hire another over seas company to do the work that have to buy all new construction equipment from Brandt industries?

[bucket]

Water project are a slippery slope.It was a good thing when Devine held extra water on the praries in south sask.But to redirect that much water At a huge cost to produce more grain commodities seems to be a win for a few farmers and a negative for the rest. I wonder how much land in those areas getting the lottery win is owed by close relatives of Sask Party members.? Or if they hire another over seas company to do the work that have to buy all new construction equipment from Brandt industries?

It's a bad project and those that want to cheerlead it and have been lobbying for it for 40 years should get out their chequebook instead of using taxpayers money. If it is such a good economic driver , why were the existing districts gifted $40 bucks and acre per year for another 5 years. Shouldn't they be on their own after 30years???

[fcr]

We all need to question our MLA on this issue.Its no wonder the urban voters think farmers get the lions share of provincial dollars with a program like this.This is insane.