Not one western MP or MLA standing up for farmers and the failed farm programs

[furrowtickler]

Very simply, a calculator will be essential.


Strategy 2025:
Fixed costs must be paid. Variable costs adjusted. Family income is a variable.

Our costs are too high. Rail freight is through the roof.

My drum remains: carbon tax should have been carbon credits.
The revenue would be great now for the province and for farmers.

The calculator had been essential for most of us the past 5 years , especially in areas with limited moisture and crops .
I know this is the first time in several years for some not to have very decent profits but most have been dealing with this for several years now

[the big wheel]

Shifted funds from where? The CO2 fairy? That can only come at the expense of some other industry or the consumer. The importers certainly aren't going to pay it when our competition hasn't commit economic suicide with a CO2 tax.

If the government can arbitrarily label CO2 as a pollutant and force one industry to pay another industry for their supposed sins, the precedent has been set, and if we support this, it can and will be used against us in the future.

This will be followed by methane taxes on livestock, Nitrous oxide taxes on fertilizer.
Deforestation taxes, water taxes, pesticide taxes, the list of possibilities is endless.

Ummmmm Harper intoduced carbon pricing??? One way or another if youre in the carbon game and pretty much you have to be if you want to be competively in trade someone is going to pay the price. The question is who? Carbon credits can and are bought by people all over the world so it is not a fairy tale to think that our value that us farmers do can be valued and purchased by people outside Canada thus making this a positive for our entire country but specifically us the farmer or are you against farmers getting rewarded for our practices????? Different estimates but one time I heard we farmers capture 12 million t of carbon, the alberta gov you know the far right anti climate change anti carbon gov is going to value carbon at 170 a t. Do you have a calculator???? lmao

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Big wheel, you need to stop getting your propaganda from far left new sites.
The big importers of the world don't care about CO2.

Our biggest competitors in the world ag market are Brazil and Russia.
Brazil's biggest trading partner is China. Brazil has no price on CO2.

Russia's biggest trading partner is China, Russia has no price on CO2.

Canada's biggest agricultural export market are the US ( there is no federal CO2 pricing) and China( see above, does not care that Russia and Brazil don't have a price on CO2)

[the big wheel]

Big wheel, you need to stop getting your propaganda from far left new sites.
The big importers of the world don't care about CO2.

Our biggest competitors in the world ag market are Brazil and Russia.
Brazil's biggest trading partner is China. Brazil has no price on CO2.

Russia's biggest trading partner is China, Russia has no price on CO2.

Canada's biggest agricultural export market are the US ( there is no federal CO2 pricing) and China( see above, does not care that Russia and Brazil don't have a price on CO2)

Im not the one getting money from RT media, Im in fact 70/30 that the entire carbon thing is a scam. but the fact is its a scam game that we have to play. Youre trying to tell me that the oil companies are investing billions in carbon capture for fun???? no they are investing in order to sell. They above all of us dont like the carbon thing but they are the highest level of proof that you have to play the game. The sooner that our Sask gov get thier head out of the sand the sooner we re better off in that game.

[bucket]

As an exporting nation of food , I don't think those that are hungry care about a false narrative of a carbon tax.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Youre trying to tell me that the oil companies are investing billions in carbon capture for fun???? no they are investing in order to sell. They above all of us dont like the carbon thing but they are the highest level of proof that you have to play the game.

How loud will you be cheering for CO2 credits when agriculture has to invest billions in Nitrous oxide capture, or methane capture, or fertilizer/ pesticide compliance, because that is the price we have to pay to play the game?
Meanwhile our competitors will continue to sell into our former largest markets at a lower cost without that burden.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

As an exporting nation of food , I don't think those that are hungry care about a false narrative of a carbon tax.

You don't have to speculate, the hard evidence is available in the existing trade data such as I posted above. About the only countries that pretend to care about CO2 above price are in the EU, which is a net agricultural exporter. Any CO2 impositions in the EU are simply trade tariffs under the guise of being green.

[bucket]

You know if you look at the way grain was transported 40 years ago compared to now , while it was a pain in the ass for railways, ultimately it was probably more environmentally friendly.

Given that production and different crops have grown now, that system, if still in place, would provide a better environmental footprint that running semis 2 hours to get to a pit.

It may cost more to have more pits or elevators, but if the concern is the environment, then it should be accounted for.

There should be a balance found.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

IN What other industry is payroll (family Income) something other than a fixed cost?

we need to pay ourselves first...then of course taxes( like it or not), what is left is for the company to prioritize and distribute as required to meet both short term and long term goals. if you don't value your own labor(pay wages) no one else will either.

Virtually every mom and pop business in the country works that way. Go ask the proprietors of your local family owned restaurant, retailer, gas station, etc. if they pay themselves a fixed wage, or make due with whatever is left over, if anything?

[wrongway]

Virtually every mom and pop business in the country works that way. Go ask the proprietors of your local family owned restaurant, retailer, gas station, etc. if they pay themselves a fixed wage, or make due with whatever is left over, if anything?

yes...the examples you site are exactly why big business is taking over everything...giant corporations decimating small businesses of every kind. ag is no different. foreign workers and immigration to provide very cheap labour while profits consolidated into a handful of entities like blackrock, vangaurd and statestreet.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

yes...the examples you site are exactly why big business is taking over everything...giant corporations decimating small businesses of every kind. ag is no different. foreign workers and immigration to provide very cheap labour while profits consolidated into a handful of entities like blackrock, vangaurd and statestreet.

I'm not sure I follow your logic.
So Mom and Pop businesses with margins so tight that they only sc r a p e by if family members do all the work themselves and work long hours as jack of all trades. I watched a local motel owner out grading the gravel parking lot by hand with a rake recently for example.

And big businesses want to take over such small margin businesses, to hire staff and add layers of management, and pay third parties to do all the other work that the mom and pop owners do on their own time, because they want to consolidate the profits.
What profits? If the mom and pop are barely scr aping by doing it all themselves, what profits are the big businesses going to consolidate?

Same with the idea that mega farms are going to take over family farms that run on a shoestring and somehow make mega profits.

[the big wheel]

How loud will you be cheering for CO2 credits when agriculture has to invest billions in Nitrous oxide capture, or methane capture, or fertilizer/ pesticide compliance, because that is the price we have to pay to play the game?
Meanwhile our competitors will continue to sell into our former largest markets at a lower cost without that burden.

There we go again instead of answer to the current discussion we have conspiracy theories about what about this and what about that. Please answer the simple questions
Why did Harper initiate carbon pricing tax?
Why is the Alberta and Sk gov spending billions on carbon capture?
Think about oil sales is the hint!!!

Do you know what a carbon credit is? Its money that would be directed to us farmers for doing what we re already doing or for so called improvements to what we re doing. So please explain how recieving money for doing what we re doing makes us less competitive?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Who does the money from the carbon credits come from?
Or do you believe in the carbon fairy?

As to your list of politicians who initiated various carbon pricing schemes, much of that was either under coercion from the federal level or under the mistaken believe that social license is an actual thing.
The one good thing that came out of the notley government in Alberta is that they very effectively proved that social license is a fairy tale.

Which of the countries we export agricultural products to is demanding that we have carbon pricing? And what percentage of our experts does that include?

[wrongway]

I'm not sure I follow your logic.
So Mom and Pop businesses with margins so tight that they only sc r a p e by if family members do all the work themselves and work long hours as jack of all trades. I watched a local motel owner out grading the gravel parking lot by hand with a rake recently for example.

And big businesses want to take over such small margin businesses, to hire staff and add layers of management, and pay third parties to do all the other work that the mom and pop owners do on their own time, because they want to consolidate the profits.
What profits? If the mom and pop are barely scr aping by doing it all themselves, what profits are the big businesses going to consolidate?

Same with the idea that mega farms are going to take over family farms that run on a shoestring and somehow make mega profits.

Go to the inputs and machinery thread and read about the bto with the chore tractors that only run augers and stone picker s probably around $2M on that alone and explain to me.like I'm 5(not a stretch) how that works.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Go to the inputs and machinery thread and read about the bto with the chore tractors that only run augers and stone picker s probably around $2M on that alone and explain to me.like I'm 5(not a stretch) how that works.

It doesn't work. I agree. I think we are on the same side. The bigger the company, the worse the efficiencies. With a family farm where everyone is a jack of all trades and have the motivation of being the owner being the ultimate.

The supposed economies of scale break down at a certain point.

That is why I don't think the model of outside investors creating mega farms that replace family farms is viable. When margins are razor thin, which is normal in bulk commodities, there is no room left for the waste of a big corporate model where no employees are invested in the outcome.

I look at the BTO who rents out here who fungicided a droughted wheat crop this year that I doubt yielded enough to cover the cost of the fungicide in many areas. Hadn't come out to look at it all season, just sent the sprayer because that is the business plan I guess.