What do North American farmers have to do to survive?

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Do you readers have any suggestions for this question? It is the topic for a talk I have been invited to give at the 12th INternational Farm Management Congress in South Africa in July. I'm interested in your feed in to the topic. What are the major risks faced in farm businesses? What can/are you doing to manages them? What management things are you doing to enhance your likelyhood of continuing your business? Thanks for your ideas.

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My belief is that to survive, North American farmers will need to learn how to form alliances, joint ventures, cooperatives. For example, a group of individual farmers could form an alliance to market a specialized product for a higher price than they would receive through traditional markets, or form a cooperative for purchasing and sharing equipment or trucking. I see this being done more in the United States than in Canada , for example cooperatives of feedlots owing their own packing plant. Canadian farmers will need to adapt to function in a cooperative environment rather in the individualistic style they have been accustomed to. Few farmers will have sufficient size to operate profitably on their own. In many cases the farms that are large enough to be profitable on their own are already alliances or cooperatives of family members, two, three, maybe four families (father and sons) that choose to work with each other rather than separately. My suggestion is that farmers will need to learn to deal with non family organizations in a similar fashion. In order to survive, the North American farmer's production skills may not be enough to survive. Production skills will need to be accompanied by organizational skills.

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We are trying very hard to do the very best we can.e.g. we try good technology such as intensive grazing feeder cattle at one per acre with a goal of 2 lbs. per day,not innovative but rather hard to achieve. We also attend field days and any seminars that may not relate directly to our enterprises but may cause some creative thinking around coffee time!! We are contracting more of our "farm" work to allow us to concentrate on what we feel most qualified. We have also contracted a consulting firm to monitor our crops as they can also use new technology such as tissue analysis for nutrient requirement. We do have concerns re-marketing. Getting this issue resolved is a real challenge. We do try different strategies with different commodities to find what works.

[edbaker]

Hello, Wilson Loree,

Interested in your message in Agri-ville about farmers marketing a couple of years ago - before South Africa trip.

I'm a former overseas missionary (helping refugees re-establish just after Korean War) which taught me to value the freedom, democracy and reasonable prosperity that we enjoy here but which I'd taken for granted before going abroad.

Also parish clergyperson for some years, but not much after divorce a number of years ago, financial planner/retirement consultant, etc.

Several years ago gave book "Merchants of Grain" for Christmas to my brother, a recently minted senior now winding down a farm operation northwest of Regina - his son has no interest.

His response? "Thanks for the book, Ed - but it made me mad!"

Twelve years ago a friend heard of a heater from N. Carolina that burned shelled corn, became local dealer. Later I sold them for a while. He's a sharp lad, built and patented his own innovative stove, CSA certified to burn wheat and rye as well as corn.

Went with him several years ago to the BIG Farm Show in Louisville that fills three or four huge halls and several smaller ones - one could get lost in there - in this week in February. Farmers from Ontario go by the busload.

Visited some booths of groups seeking to promote farmers' interests. Asked them, "Know what you can do to promote the interests of grain farmers more than any other?"

Interested, they asked,"No,what?"

"Do something to curb the power of Cargill," was my response.

"Yes, for sure. But HOW DO YOU PROPOSE THAT WE DO THAT?, they asked.

Unfortunately, I did not have solutions to offer.

We used to say that we could heat space cheaper than any other fuels except natural gas or wood that one cut one's self. At equal cost, there's no competition: using natural gas, one hooks up to the end of the pipe and pays one's bill at the end of the month: a lazy person's dream. But, it appears that the "equal cost" days may be over.

Corn stoves, as wood stoves, need service oftener than once a day, in cold weather.

But one theme that grain stove sellers use is, "Why put yourself into the handcuffs of buying a heating unit where you force yourself to buy fuel from a member of an international cartel, when you can buy one that allows you to buy fuel from any one of scores of thousands of farmers - and let the international grain cartel ensure that your fuel cost will remain low?"

To be in excellent health at age 72 gives one much for which to be thankful. My daughter called from Arizona - in the DAYTIME - a few weeks ago to sing "Happy birthday ....": made my day.

Good wishes to you and to those who are important to you.

Ed Baker eddbaker@yahoo.com