"Only businessmen can afford to be cowboys"

[pandiana]

I would like to offer a rather lengthly quote from Alberta Beef, DEC Issue on Management written by David Pratt, Ranch Management Consultants.
'Most North American ranch businesses survice because they are subsidized. The are subsidized through inherited wealth, appreciating land values, off-farm income and free labour. Can you imagine a business in town that can't pay rent for the building it uses or pay a competitive wage to the people it employs? There's a word for businesses like that...bankrupt!

Some of our neighbours excuse the poor profitability of their businesses by agruing that ranching is a "lifestyle" business. Of course there is the home on the range and working for yourself in the wide open spaces. But what about the economic and financial stress? We face stresses from uncertain prices and drought. We feel pressure from our parents, our children, our siblings, our spouse and ourselves to run an efficient operation, uphold tradition and be everything to everone. It shouldn't be a surprise that depression, divorce and suicide rates are highest in rural areas and higher per capita for farm and ranch families than in any other segments of the population. Wide open spaces and independence don't go very far when you take medication for your ulcers, the banker is knocking at your door and no one in your family talks to anyone anymore. ... Conventional wisdom tells us that increasing productivity will increase profit. Conventional wisdom is wrong!

The average beef cow in Alberta is about 20% more productive today than 20 years ago. Ask yourself if this remarkable increase in productivity has made your business more profitable, more financially secure, healthier ecologically, less stressful and more fulfilling for you and your family. What makes you thing that working harder in our business to increase production will increase profit and improve our lives? It hasn't worked in the past and it won't work in the future."
I think he has summarized the problem very well. His solution however offers one more theory. "We need to spend less time working IN our business (WITB) and more time working ON our business (WOTB). It is critical to understand the difference between the two. A cowboy works IN the business, the businessman works ON the business". He goes into detail on how businessmen would approach farming.

[cowman]

Pandiana: Businessmen would approach farming by selling out! I mean the profit to assets really suck!
But having said that...The businessman will never understand the satisfaction of walking through a well grown out bunch of heifers, or appreciating a chinook after two weeks of -30 weather, or baling up that real heavy hay crop! So I guess what it boils down to is that what we do is not really about money but about a way of life that gets it's rewards from something else than the mighty buck! If you haven't experienced it you just won't get it!

[ianben]

I agree cowman there is more to life than money.

How does the businessman justify his exotic holiday or round of golf.

Farmers don,t know where work ends and the hobby begins.

If you think its all work find another job. The only reason to farm is for the pleasures it gives you as an individual.

If you want keep the hobby find a way to subsidse it like the rest of us.

Today there is no economic way to make it add up, in it or on it.

Regards Ian

[countryguy]

Well Said Cowman.It makes me sick watching the world nowadays revolve around the almighty dollar.If it costs me money to be my own boss,working outside closely with nature,it's a cost I'll gladly pay.

[Muttley]

I agree with many of you, it's a way of life. But if not managed successfully we'll be working that 8 to 5 job doing something we hate.
I keep telling my kids to get a education so you can make a choice not be stuck farming. If they want to that's fine I just hope that by that time the people that control us will wake up and realize how important agriculture is to everybody.
I often feel that some people including those from the rural forget just who produces their food. Let's hear them all whine if we all quit to do something else and their Friday night steak and baked potato was not there.

[nakodo]

Actually if all Cdn farmers quit tomorrow you could still have your steak and baked potato, it would just be a USDA inspected one. I suspect it might not even really go up in price all that much.

The days of Cdn Farmers feeding the world is/are/were a myth. All of our exports to the US for beef still only make up 6 % of their market consumption.

We need to fully understand the realities of our contribution to the world and Canada's food basket. We can feed people yes it is true, but others would gladly do it for us in a minute if we wanted to quit.

[Steve]

We need self-esteem to keep farming because that is what keeps us going through the bad times by also remembering the good.

We should always keep an open mind and look at others along the food chain because they too have to compete in this global market.

Farmers have to realize that in today’s world what happens in China could have some effect on our grain and meat prices in Canada, because of globalization and world trade agreements.

One may think this farming is not paying to keep on, but your neighbor may just be waiting for you to sell so he could expand.

People are in the fast lane at the present time but don’t even know where they came from or their destination.

A job with a large corporation or Government meant lifetime security at one time but not anymore, because of the buyouts or amalgamations puts the employees job at risk after ever transaction. That includes the owners of the corporations on hostile takeovers. Also large companies like Eaton’s stores downsizing to try and stay in business.

So chins up farmers and ranchers things are not as bad as they seem and beside you may win a loto 649 in the near future.

Regards Steve

[cowman]

Steve: You are right about keeping our chins up. My dad told me that in the dirty thirties they had no money but they always ate good and they never lacked for work. They knew who they were and why they were there.
The whole idea that agriculture is bust and that we aren't really needed anymore is actually rather silly. If you imported all the food Canada needs what would happen to all the people who make their living off the producer? It would break the country! The only real wealth comes out of the ground and sea...agriculture, oil, mining, forestry, and fishing. The rest of the economy rests on servicing and enhancing these activities. Stop that basic production and the whole thing crashes like a house of cards.
So know that by growing that crop you are allowing a whole host of people to survive.

[pandiana]

Nokado says "We can feed people yes it is true, but others would gladly do it for us in a minute if we wanted to quit"
Cowman says "If you imported all the food Canada needs what would happen to all the people who make their living off the producer? It would break the country! The only real wealth comes out of the ground and sea...agriculture, oil, mining, forestry, and fishing."
Two very different views and yet...I believe that both ring true. What incentive or responsibility do Canadians have to insure that they have a made in Canada food policy? If we are to believe what the contributing author Pratt believes, in order for farmers to survive, they must spend 'marketing' their produce which I would assume means less time working in the business of farming. Rather like the CEO approach seen in another thread. It is not good enough to be good at farming and all the skills that can entail but it would seem we must add economics to our list.

[cowman]

Pandiana: Ian wrote something to the effect"If you want the hobby find a way to be able to afford it". This is the only way many will keep farming or at least as we know it. If we went at it like a huge factory farm I suppose it would make business sense. Build a 2500 sow pig barn, have a whole bunch of employees to do the work, and spend our time managing it. For most of us that would sort of defeat the reason we do this. How would this be any different than running any manufacturing business? Just about all farms in Canada could sell out and make a much better living by investing their money somewhere else(well if the govt. didn't clean you out!).And I suspect that is what is happening as the older generation retires. And when the "businessmen" get everything vertically integrated you will see agriculture become very viable.So enjoy your lifestyle just like the plains Indians did before the buffalo were all gone.

[cakadu]

What about putting a different spin on this statement? I would have to agree, at least in part, with those who say that some of the prosperity out in the rural areas is going to come from urban people who see a business opportunity by growing a crop/product or ecological good that is currently being developed. Think about growing pigs for organ transplants or growing crops that will be used to take harmful chemicals from the soil or crops that will be used to produce bio-fuels because the current starch products will not be able to meet the anticipated demand in a few years. These are but a few of the possibilities on the horizon.

Does this mean it is a bad thing? It is one way to keep rural communities going because certainly in the last few decades traditional commodity production has not kept people on the farm. In fact, it has done the opposite, people have left.